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2008 President · MO

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 47%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.29% · Republican 49.43%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 47 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.293 − 49.426 = -0.133
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-0.133) = 1.133
  4. Absolute miss = |1.133| = 1.133

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16640, race ID 728 (538 database).