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2008 President · SC

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 54%

R+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.90% · Republican 53.87%

R+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 54 = -11.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.897 − 53.874 = -8.977
  3. Signed miss = -11.00 − (-8.977) = -2.023
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.023| = 2.023

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16773, race ID 744 (538 database).