2008 President · IA
Marist College · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 645 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 52% · Republican 42%
D+10.0
The certified result
Democrat 53.93% · Republican 44.39%
D+9.5
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 52 − 42 = 10.00
- Actual margin = 53.928 − 44.393 = 9.535
- Signed miss = 10.00 − (9.535) = 0.465
- Absolute miss = |0.465| = 0.465
The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.5 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16692, race ID 716 (538 database).