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2008 President · VA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 45%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.63% · Republican 46.33%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 45 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.629 − 46.331 = 6.298
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (6.298) = -4.299
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.299| = 4.299

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16754, race ID 749 (538 database).