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2008 President · OR

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 672 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 38%

D+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.75% · Republican 40.40%

D+16.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 38 = 19.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.749 − 40.401 = 16.348
  3. Signed miss = 19.00 − (16.348) = 2.652
  4. Absolute miss = |2.652| = 2.652

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 16673, race ID 741 (538 database).