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2008 President · MT

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-24 (11 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 48%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.25% · Republican 49.51%

R+2.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 48 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.250 − 49.513 = -2.263
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-2.263) = -1.737
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.737| = 1.737

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16681, race ID 730 (538 database).