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2008 President · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 632 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 42%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.27% · Republican 41.70%

D+15.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 42 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.272 − 41.704 = 15.568
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (15.568) = -5.568
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.568| = 5.568

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16541, race ID 735 (538 database).