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2008 President · MN

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-17 (18 days before the election) · 655 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 44%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.06% · Republican 43.82%

D+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 44 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.060 − 43.823 = 10.237
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (10.237) = -4.237
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.237| = 4.237

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16819, race ID 727 (538 database).