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2008 President · IN

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 795 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 53%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.95% · Republican 48.91%

D+1.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 53 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.946 − 48.914 = 1.032
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (1.032) = -9.032
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.032| = 9.032

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16494, race ID 719 (538 database).