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2008 President · MO

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.29% · Republican 49.43%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.293 − 49.426 = -0.133
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (-0.133) = 5.133
  4. Absolute miss = |5.133| = 5.133

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16792, race ID 728 (538 database).