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2008 President · WI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 641 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 43%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.22% · Republican 42.31%

D+13.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 43 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.218 − 42.314 = 13.904
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (13.904) = -5.904
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.904| = 5.904

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16810, race ID 752 (538 database).