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2008 President · WV

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

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 47%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.59% · Republican 55.71%

R+13.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 47 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.590 − 55.710 = -13.120
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-13.120) = 7.121
  4. Absolute miss = |7.121| = 7.121

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16822, race ID 753 (538 database).