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2008 President · OR

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 42%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.75% · Republican 40.40%

D+16.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 42 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.749 − 40.401 = 16.348
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (16.348) = -4.348
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.348| = 4.348

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16535, race ID 741 (538 database).