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2008 President · OH

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-16 (19 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 46%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.50% · Republican 46.91%

D+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 46 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.504 − 46.911 = 4.593
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (4.593) = -5.594
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.594| = 5.594

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16821, race ID 739 (538 database).