Skip to content

2008 President · SC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 728 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 52%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.90% · Republican 53.87%

R+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 52 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.897 − 53.874 = -8.977
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-8.977) = 0.977
  4. Absolute miss = |0.977| = 0.977

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16458, race ID 744 (538 database).