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2008 President · GA

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

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 51%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.99% · Republican 52.20%

R+5.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 51 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.990 − 52.205 = -5.215
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-5.215) = 0.214
  4. Absolute miss = |0.214| = 0.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16724, race ID 714 (538 database).