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2008 Governor · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 831 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 67% · Republican 20%

D+47.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.18% · Republican 27.62%

D+42.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 67 − 20 = 47.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.181 − 27.624 = 42.557
  3. Signed miss = 47.00 − (42.557) = 4.443
  4. Absolute miss = |4.443| = 4.443

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54158, race ID 1317 (538 database).