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2008 President · OK

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 491 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 58%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 34.35% · Republican 65.64%

R+31.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 58 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 34.355 − 65.645 = -31.290
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-31.290) = 12.290
  4. Absolute miss = |12.290| = 12.290

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16496, race ID 740 (538 database).