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2008 President · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 671 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 43%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.63% · Republican 46.33%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 43 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.629 − 46.331 = 6.298
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (6.298) = 2.701
  4. Absolute miss = |2.701| = 2.701

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16672, race ID 749 (538 database).