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2008 President · TX

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 54%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.68% · Republican 55.45%

R+11.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 54 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.683 − 55.452 = -11.769
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-11.769) = 1.769
  4. Absolute miss = |1.769| = 1.769

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16757, race ID 747 (538 database).