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2008 President · MA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 658 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 39%

D+17.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.36% · Republican 35.73%

D+25.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 39 = 17.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.363 − 35.735 = 25.628
  3. Signed miss = 17.00 − (25.628) = -8.628
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.628| = 8.628

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16606, race ID 723 (538 database).