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2008 Governor · NH

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 682 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 65% · Republican 28%

D+37.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.18% · Republican 27.62%

D+42.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 65 − 28 = 37.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.181 − 27.624 = 42.557
  3. Signed miss = 37.00 − (42.557) = -5.557
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.557| = 5.557

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16540, race ID 1317 (538 database).