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2008 President · national

TIPP Insights · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 886 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44.8% · Republican 43.7%

D+1.1

The certified result

Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%

D+7.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44.8 − 43.7 = 1.10
  2. Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
  3. Signed miss = 1.10 − (7.400) = -6.300
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.300| = 6.300

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63590, race ID 38 (538 database).