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2008 President · VA

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2008-10-24 (11 days before the election) · 784 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 44%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.63% · Republican 46.33%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 44 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.629 − 46.331 = 6.298
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (6.298) = 1.701
  4. Absolute miss = |1.701| = 1.701

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16686, race ID 749 (538 database).