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2008 President · KY

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 817 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 51%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.17% · Republican 57.40%

R+16.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 51 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.168 − 57.399 = -16.231
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-16.231) = 7.231
  4. Absolute miss = |7.231| = 7.231

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16558, race ID 721 (538 database).