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2008 President · OK

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 594 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 34% · Republican 63%

R+29.0

The certified result

Democrat 34.35% · Republican 65.64%

R+31.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 34 − 63 = -29.00
  2. Actual margin = 34.355 − 65.645 = -31.290
  3. Signed miss = -29.00 − (-31.290) = 2.290
  4. Absolute miss = |2.290| = 2.290

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16571, race ID 740 (538 database).