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2008 President · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 692 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 39%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.13% · Republican 44.52%

D+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 39 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.127 − 44.521 = 9.606
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (9.606) = 6.395
  4. Absolute miss = |6.395| = 6.395

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16677, race ID 734 (538 database).