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2008 President · KY

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 52%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.17% · Republican 57.40%

R+16.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 52 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.168 − 57.399 = -16.231
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-16.231) = 8.231
  4. Absolute miss = |8.231| = 8.231

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16755, race ID 721 (538 database).