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2008 President · M2

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 313 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 39%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.61% · Republican 43.35%

D+11.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 39 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.607 − 43.353 = 11.254
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (11.254) = 4.747
  4. Absolute miss = |4.747| = 4.747

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 75473, race ID 8706 (538 database).