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2008 President · WV

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 52%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.59% · Republican 55.71%

R+13.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 52 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.590 − 55.710 = -13.120
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-13.120) = 4.121
  4. Absolute miss = |4.121| = 4.121

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16772, race ID 753 (538 database).