Skip to content

2008 President · 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 54% · Republican 39%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.13% · Republican 44.52%

D+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 39 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.127 − 44.521 = 9.606
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (9.606) = 5.395
  4. Absolute miss = |5.395| = 5.395

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16741, race ID 734 (538 database).