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2008 President · TN

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-16 (19 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 54%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.83% · Republican 56.90%

R+15.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 54 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.829 − 56.897 = -15.068
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-15.068) = 3.068
  4. Absolute miss = |3.068| = 3.068

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16832, race ID 746 (538 database).