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2008 President · GA

Big Village · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 690 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-5.215) = 1.214
  4. Absolute miss = |1.214| = 1.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16584, race ID 714 (538 database).