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2008 President · CO

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 45%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.66% · Republican 44.71%

D+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 45 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.660 − 44.708 = 8.952
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (8.952) = -1.953
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.953| = 1.953

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16515, race ID 709 (538 database).