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2008 President · CA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 61% · Republican 34%

D+27.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.01% · Republican 36.95%

D+24.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 61 − 34 = 27.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.013 − 36.955 = 24.058
  3. Signed miss = 27.00 − (24.058) = 2.942
  4. Absolute miss = |2.942| = 2.942

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16685, race ID 708 (538 database).