2008 President · ME
SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 674 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 58% · Republican 38%
D+20.0
The certified result
Democrat 57.71% · Republican 40.38%
D+17.3
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 58 − 38 = 20.00
- Actual margin = 57.706 − 40.384 = 17.322
- Signed miss = 20.00 − (17.322) = 2.678
- Absolute miss = |2.678| = 2.678
The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16507, race ID 725 (538 database).