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2008 House · IL-14

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2008-03-01 (7 days before the election) · 550 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.53% · Republican 47.47%

D+5.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.528 − 47.472 = 5.056
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (5.056) = -7.056
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.056| = 7.056

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73713, race ID 1812 (538 database).