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2008 President · FL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-16 (19 days before the election) · 553 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 49%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.03% · Republican 48.22%

D+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 49 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.033 − 48.215 = 2.818
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (2.818) = -4.818
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.818| = 4.818

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16837, race ID 713 (538 database).