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2008 President · ND

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 271 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 50%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.62% · Republican 53.25%

R+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 50 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.621 − 53.250 = -8.629
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-8.629) = 1.630
  4. Absolute miss = |1.630| = 1.630

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16450, race ID 732 (538 database).