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2008 President · MO

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 46%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.29% · Republican 49.43%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 46 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.293 − 49.426 = -0.133
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-0.133) = -0.867
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.867| = 0.867

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16696, race ID 728 (538 database).