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2008 President · MI

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 973 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 42%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.43% · Republican 40.96%

D+16.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 42 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.431 − 40.958 = 16.473
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (16.473) = -3.473
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.473| = 3.473

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16489, race ID 726 (538 database).