2008 President · national
CBS News/The New York Times · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 327 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 54% · Republican 41%
D+13.0
The certified result
Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%
D+7.4
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 54 − 41 = 13.00
- Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
- Signed miss = 13.00 − (7.400) = 5.600
- Absolute miss = |5.600| = 5.600
The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.6 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63537, race ID 38 (538 database).