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2008 President · DC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 228 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 81% · Republican 15%

D+66.0

The certified result

Democrat 92.46% · Republican 6.53%

D+85.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 81 − 15 = 66.00
  2. Actual margin = 92.457 − 6.533 = 85.924
  3. Signed miss = 66.00 − (85.924) = -19.925
  4. Absolute miss = |-19.925| = 19.925

The poll overstated the Republican by 19.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77459, race ID 711 (538 database).