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2008 Senate · AK

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 44%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.77% · Republican 46.52%

D+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 44 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.767 − 46.523 = 1.244
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (1.244) = 6.756
  4. Absolute miss = |6.756| = 6.756

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16598, race ID 1546 (538 database).