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2008 President · NC

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 700 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 48%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.38%

D+0.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 48 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.704 − 49.376 = 0.328
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (0.328) = 2.671
  4. Absolute miss = |2.671| = 2.671

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16796, race ID 731 (538 database).