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2008 President · OH

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 42%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.50% · Republican 46.91%

D+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 42 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.504 − 46.911 = 4.593
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (4.593) = 4.406
  4. Absolute miss = |4.406| = 4.406

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16807, race ID 739 (538 database).