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2008 President · MN

St. Cloud State University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 509 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 37%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.06% · Republican 43.82%

D+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 37 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.060 − 43.823 = 10.237
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (10.237) = -5.237
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.237| = 5.237

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16730, race ID 727 (538 database).