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2008 Governor · NH

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 67% · Republican 15%

D+52.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.18% · Republican 27.62%

D+42.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 67 − 15 = 52.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.181 − 27.624 = 42.557
  3. Signed miss = 52.00 − (42.557) = 9.443
  4. Absolute miss = |9.443| = 9.443

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16569, race ID 1317 (538 database).