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2008 President · AK

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 57%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 37.89% · Republican 59.42%

R+21.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 57 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 37.889 − 59.425 = -21.536
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-21.536) = 5.535
  4. Absolute miss = |5.535| = 5.535

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16598, race ID 704 (538 database).