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2008 President · GA

InsiderAdvantage · fieldwork ended 2008-11-02 (2 days before the election) · 512 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-5.215) = 4.214
  4. Absolute miss = |4.214| = 4.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16414, race ID 714 (538 database).