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2008 President · MS

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 53%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.00% · Republican 56.18%

R+13.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 53 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.002 − 56.176 = -13.174
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-13.174) = 5.175
  4. Absolute miss = |5.175| = 5.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16621, race ID 729 (538 database).