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2008 House · LA-6

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2008-10-15 (20 days before the election) · 300 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 34%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.29% · Republican 48.12%

R+7.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 34 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.294 − 48.119 = -7.825
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (-7.825) = 18.825
  4. Absolute miss = |18.825| = 18.825

The poll overstated the Democrat by 18.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64141, race ID 4202 (538 database).