2008 President · national
Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 773 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 50% · Republican 42%
D+8.0
The certified result
Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%
D+7.4
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 50 − 42 = 8.00
- Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
- Signed miss = 8.00 − (7.400) = 0.600
- Absolute miss = |0.600| = 0.600
The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.6 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15235, race ID 38 (538 database).