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2008 President · FL

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 46%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.03% · Republican 48.22%

D+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 46 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.033 − 48.215 = 2.818
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (2.818) = -3.818
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.818| = 3.818

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16753, race ID 713 (538 database).