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2008 Governor · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 44%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.27% · Republican 46.88%

D+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 44 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.275 − 46.877 = 3.398
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (3.398) = 0.603
  4. Absolute miss = |0.603| = 0.603

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16802, race ID 1323 (538 database).