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2008 Governor · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 725 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 67% · Republican 17%

D+50.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.18% · Republican 27.62%

D+42.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 67 − 17 = 50.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.181 − 27.624 = 42.557
  3. Signed miss = 50.00 − (42.557) = 7.443
  4. Absolute miss = |7.443| = 7.443

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16741, race ID 1317 (538 database).