Skip to content

2008 President · WI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 667 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 39%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.22% · Republican 42.31%

D+13.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 39 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.218 − 42.314 = 13.904
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (13.904) = 2.096
  4. Absolute miss = |2.096| = 2.096

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16570, race ID 752 (538 database).