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2008 President · MA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 705 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 39%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.36% · Republican 35.73%

D+25.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 39 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.363 − 35.735 = 25.628
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (25.628) = -7.628
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.628| = 7.628

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16476, race ID 723 (538 database).