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2008 President · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 34%

D+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.36% · Republican 35.73%

D+25.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 34 = 19.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.363 − 35.735 = 25.628
  3. Signed miss = 19.00 − (25.628) = -6.628
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.628| = 6.628

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16735, race ID 723 (538 database).