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2008 President · AZ

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 51%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.12% · Republican 53.63%

R+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 51 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.115 − 53.635 = -8.520
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-8.520) = 3.520
  4. Absolute miss = |3.520| = 3.520

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16656, race ID 707 (538 database).