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2008 President · MS

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 417 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 55%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.00% · Republican 56.18%

R+13.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 55 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.002 − 56.176 = -13.174
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (-13.174) = 0.175
  4. Absolute miss = |0.175| = 0.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16479, race ID 729 (538 database).