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2008 President · FL

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

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 45%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.03% · Republican 48.22%

D+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 45 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.033 − 48.215 = 2.818
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (2.818) = -0.818
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.818| = 0.818

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16553, race ID 713 (538 database).