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2008 President · NJ

Quinnipiac University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 1,184 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 36%

D+23.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.27% · Republican 41.70%

D+15.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 36 = 23.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.272 − 41.704 = 15.568
  3. Signed miss = 23.00 − (15.568) = 7.432
  4. Absolute miss = |7.432| = 7.432

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16805, race ID 735 (538 database).