Skip to content

2008 President · WY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 604 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 37% · Republican 58%

R+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 32.54% · Republican 64.78%

R+32.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 37 − 58 = -21.00
  2. Actual margin = 32.541 − 64.776 = -32.235
  3. Signed miss = -21.00 − (-32.235) = 11.235
  4. Absolute miss = |11.235| = 11.235

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16811, race ID 754 (538 database).