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2008 President · GA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 910 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 50%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 50 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-5.215) = 2.214
  4. Absolute miss = |2.214| = 2.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16475, race ID 714 (538 database).