Skip to content

2008 President · NY

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 988 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 58% · Republican 38%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.13% · Republican 31.30%

D+28.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 58 − 38 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.129 − 31.303 = 28.826
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (28.826) = -8.826
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.826| = 8.826

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16484, race ID 738 (538 database).