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2008 President · CO

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 685 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 40%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.66% · Republican 44.71%

D+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 40 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.660 − 44.708 = 8.952
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (8.952) = 6.047
  4. Absolute miss = |6.047| = 6.047

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16474, race ID 709 (538 database).