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2008 President · AL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 650 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 61%

R+25.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.74% · Republican 60.32%

R+21.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 61 = -25.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.740 − 60.317 = -21.577
  3. Signed miss = -25.00 − (-21.577) = -3.424
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.424| = 3.424

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16607, race ID 705 (538 database).