Skip to content

2008 President · MO

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-15 (20 days before the election) · 700 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 46%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.29% · Republican 49.43%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 46 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.293 − 49.426 = -0.133
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (-0.133) = 6.133
  4. Absolute miss = |6.133| = 6.133

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16848, race ID 728 (538 database).