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2008 House · UT-1

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-24 (11 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 29% · Republican 54%

R+25.0

The certified result

Democrat 30.47% · Republican 64.86%

R+34.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 29 − 54 = -25.00
  2. Actual margin = 30.473 − 64.855 = -34.382
  3. Signed miss = -25.00 − (-34.382) = 9.382
  4. Absolute miss = |9.382| = 9.382

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16680, race ID 4425 (538 database).