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2008 President · NE

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 407 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 57%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.60% · Republican 56.53%

R+14.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 57 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.598 − 56.532 = -14.934
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-14.934) = -4.066
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.066| = 4.066

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16463, race ID 733 (538 database).