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2008 President · ME

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 486 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 42%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.71% · Republican 40.38%

D+17.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 42 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.706 − 40.384 = 17.322
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (17.322) = -8.322
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.322| = 8.322

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16455, race ID 725 (538 database).