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2008 President · OH

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2008-10-14 (21 days before the election) · 700 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 49%

even

The certified result

Democrat 51.50% · Republican 46.91%

D+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 49 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.504 − 46.911 = 4.593
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (4.593) = -4.594
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.594| = 4.594

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16863, race ID 739 (538 database).