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2008 House · LA-4

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-11-17 (19 days before the election) · 648 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.69% · Republican 48.07%

R+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.694 − 48.072 = -0.378
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-0.378) = -1.622
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.622| = 1.622

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73940, race ID 4200 (538 database).