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2008 House · CA-11

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-14 (21 days before the election) · 650 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 41%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.27% · Republican 44.72%

D+10.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 41 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.273 − 44.723 = 10.550
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (10.550) = 0.451
  4. Absolute miss = |0.451| = 0.451

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64330, race ID 4056 (538 database).