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2008 President · ME

Pan Atlantic Research · fieldwork ended 2008-10-15 (20 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 39%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.71% · Republican 40.38%

D+17.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 39 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.706 − 40.384 = 17.322
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (17.322) = -5.322
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.322| = 5.322

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16830, race ID 725 (538 database).