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2008 House · PA-12

Susquehanna Polling & Research Inc. · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 41%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.85% · Republican 42.15%

D+15.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 41 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.852 − 42.148 = 15.704
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (15.704) = -10.704
  4. Absolute miss = |-10.704| = 10.704

The poll overstated the Republican by 10.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64368, race ID 4367 (538 database).