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2008 House · ID-1

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 613 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 45%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.61% · Republican 49.39%

D+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 45 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.606 − 49.394 = 1.212
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (1.212) = 4.788
  4. Absolute miss = |4.788| = 4.788

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64333, race ID 4152 (538 database).