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2008 Senate · GA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.83% · Republican 49.76%

R+2.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.833 − 49.756 = -2.923
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-2.923) = 0.924
  4. Absolute miss = |0.924| = 0.924

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16724, race ID 1550 (538 database).