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2008 President · MO

InsiderAdvantage · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 814 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 50%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.29% · Republican 49.43%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 50 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.293 − 49.426 = -0.133
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-0.133) = -2.867
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.867| = 2.867

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16559, race ID 728 (538 database).