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2008 President · NC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 955 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 47%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.38%

D+0.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 47 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.704 − 49.376 = 0.328
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (0.328) = 3.671
  4. Absolute miss = |3.671| = 3.671

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16495, race ID 731 (538 database).