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2008 President · NH

Marist College · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 655 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 45%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.13% · Republican 44.52%

D+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 45 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.127 − 44.521 = 9.606
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (9.606) = -4.605
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.605| = 4.605

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16693, race ID 734 (538 database).