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2008 President · GA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 49%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 49 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-5.215) = -0.786
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.786| = 0.786

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16694, race ID 714 (538 database).