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2008 House · NJ-7

National Research · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 300 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 31% · Republican 40%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.22% · Republican 50.22%

R+8.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 31 − 40 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.221 − 50.219 = -7.998
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-7.998) = -1.002
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.002| = 1.002

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64159, race ID 4275 (538 database).