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2008 President · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 2,100 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 49%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.38%

D+0.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 49 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.704 − 49.376 = 0.328
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (0.328) = 0.671
  4. Absolute miss = |0.671| = 0.671

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16423, race ID 731 (538 database).