Skip to content

2008 President · LA

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

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 57%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.93% · Republican 58.56%

R+18.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 57 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.933 − 58.563 = -18.630
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-18.630) = 2.630
  4. Absolute miss = |2.630| = 2.630

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16756, race ID 722 (538 database).