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2008 Governor · MO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 672 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 38%

D+17.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.40% · Republican 39.49%

D+18.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 38 = 17.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.400 − 39.488 = 18.912
  3. Signed miss = 17.00 − (18.912) = -1.912
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.912| = 1.912

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16674, race ID 1315 (538 database).