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2008 President · NM

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 664 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 45%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.91% · Republican 41.78%

D+15.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 45 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.907 − 41.779 = 15.128
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (15.128) = -8.128
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.128| = 8.128

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16510, race ID 736 (538 database).