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2008 President · PA

Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 709 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 40%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.49% · Republican 44.17%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 40 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.486 − 44.167 = 10.319
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (10.319) = 2.682
  4. Absolute miss = |2.682| = 2.682

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16646, race ID 742 (538 database).