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2008 President · IN

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 50%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.95% · Republican 48.91%

D+1.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 50 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.946 − 48.914 = 1.032
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (1.032) = -7.032
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.032| = 7.032

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16662, race ID 719 (538 database).