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2008 Senate · OR

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 46%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.91% · Republican 45.55%

D+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 46 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.905 − 45.553 = 3.352
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (3.352) = -0.351
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.351| = 0.351

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16535, race ID 1571 (538 database).