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2008 Governor · WA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 630 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 48%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.24% · Republican 46.76%

D+6.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 48 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.240 − 46.760 = 6.480
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (6.480) = -4.481
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.481| = 4.481

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16625, race ID 1321 (538 database).