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2008 President · NY

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

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 37%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.13% · Republican 31.30%

D+28.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 37 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.129 − 31.303 = 28.826
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (28.826) = -8.826
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.826| = 8.826

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16860, race ID 738 (538 database).