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2008 President · FL

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 46%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.03% · Republican 48.22%

D+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 46 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.033 − 48.215 = 2.818
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (2.818) = 1.182
  4. Absolute miss = |1.182| = 1.182

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16498, race ID 713 (538 database).