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2008 President · LA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 436 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 52%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.93% · Republican 58.56%

R+18.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 52 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.933 − 58.563 = -18.630
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-18.630) = 11.630
  4. Absolute miss = |11.630| = 11.630

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16467, race ID 722 (538 database).