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2008 President · CO

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.66% · Republican 44.71%

D+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.660 − 44.708 = 8.952
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (8.952) = -3.953
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.953| = 3.953

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16552, race ID 709 (538 database).