Skip to content

2008 President · MN

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 699 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 45%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.06% · Republican 43.82%

D+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 45 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.060 − 43.823 = 10.237
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (10.237) = -4.237
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.237| = 4.237

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16477, race ID 727 (538 database).