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2008 President · AZ

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 48%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.12% · Republican 53.63%

R+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 48 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.115 − 53.635 = -8.520
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-8.520) = 4.520
  4. Absolute miss = |4.520| = 4.520

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16594, race ID 707 (538 database).