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2008 President · GA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 1,253 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 50%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 50 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-5.215) = 3.214
  4. Absolute miss = |3.214| = 3.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16417, race ID 714 (538 database).