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2004 President · national

Opinion Dynamics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-2.443) = 0.444
  4. Absolute miss = |0.444| = 0.444

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15036, race ID 39 (538 database).