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2008 President · HI

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 337 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 34%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 71.85% · Republican 26.58%

D+45.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 34 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 71.846 − 26.582 = 45.264
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (45.264) = -23.264
  4. Absolute miss = |-23.264| = 23.264

The poll overstated the Republican by 23.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16448, race ID 715 (538 database).