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2008 President · national

FTI Consulting · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 887 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 45%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%

D+7.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 45 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (7.400) = -2.400
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.400| = 2.400

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15186, race ID 38 (538 database).