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2008 President · IL

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 60% · Republican 38%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.92% · Republican 36.78%

D+25.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 60 − 38 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.918 − 36.781 = 25.137
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (25.137) = -3.137
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.137| = 3.137

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16442, race ID 718 (538 database).