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2008 President · AR

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 491 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 53%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.87% · Republican 58.72%

R+19.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 53 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.865 − 58.716 = -19.851
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-19.851) = 7.851
  4. Absolute miss = |7.851| = 7.851

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16451, race ID 706 (538 database).