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2008 President · national

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2008-10-14 (21 days before the election) · 2,400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 47%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%

D+7.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 47 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (7.400) = -5.400
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.400| = 5.400

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15081, race ID 38 (538 database).