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2008 President · MN

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-31 (4 days before the election) · 669 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 46%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.06% · Republican 43.82%

D+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 46 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.060 − 43.823 = 10.237
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (10.237) = -7.237
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.237| = 7.237

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16446, race ID 727 (538 database).