Skip to content

2008 President · MT

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 49%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.25% · Republican 49.51%

R+2.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 49 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.250 − 49.513 = -2.263
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-2.263) = -0.737
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.737| = 0.737

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16513, race ID 730 (538 database).