2008 President · NC
Elon University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 797 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 45% · Republican 38%
D+7.0
The certified result
Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.38%
D+0.3
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 45 − 38 = 7.00
- Actual margin = 49.704 − 49.376 = 0.328
- Signed miss = 7.00 − (0.328) = 6.671
- Absolute miss = |6.671| = 6.671
The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.7 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63540, race ID 731 (538 database).