Skip to content

2008 President · CA

Field Research Corp. (Field Poll) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 966 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 33%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.01% · Republican 36.95%

D+24.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 33 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.013 − 36.955 = 24.058
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (24.058) = -2.058
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.058| = 2.058

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16587, race ID 708 (538 database).