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2008 President · MI

Mitchell Research & Communications · fieldwork ended 2008-11-03 (1 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 38%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.43% · Republican 40.96%

D+16.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 38 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.431 − 40.958 = 16.473
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (16.473) = -0.473
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.473| = 0.473

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16395, race ID 726 (538 database).