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2008 President · MD

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 709 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 60% · Republican 35%

D+25.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.92% · Republican 36.48%

D+25.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 60 − 35 = 25.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.919 − 36.475 = 25.444
  3. Signed miss = 25.00 − (25.444) = -0.445
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.445| = 0.445

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16482, race ID 724 (538 database).