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2008 House · OH-15

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 632 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 41%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.94% · Republican 45.18%

D+0.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 41 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.940 − 45.179 = 0.761
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (0.761) = 5.239
  4. Absolute miss = |5.239| = 5.239

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64342, race ID 4342 (538 database).