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2008 President · IA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 44%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.93% · Republican 44.39%

D+9.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 44 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.928 − 44.393 = 9.535
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (9.535) = -1.535
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.535| = 1.535

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16701, race ID 716 (538 database).