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2008 President · NC

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

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 44%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.38%

D+0.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 44 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.704 − 49.376 = 0.328
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (0.328) = 6.671
  4. Absolute miss = |6.671| = 6.671

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16802, race ID 731 (538 database).