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2004 President · national

Lake Research Partners/The Tarrance Group · fieldwork ended 2004-10-31 (2 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 47%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 47 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-2.443) = -3.556
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.556| = 3.556

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 14920, race ID 39 (538 database).