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2008 President · ME

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 43%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.71% · Republican 40.38%

D+17.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 43 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.706 − 40.384 = 17.322
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (17.322) = -4.322
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.322| = 4.322

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16443, race ID 725 (538 database).