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2004 Senate · FL

Opinion Dynamics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 700 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 41%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.32% · Republican 49.43%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 41 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.321 − 49.434 = -1.113
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (-1.113) = 7.113
  4. Absolute miss = |7.113| = 7.113

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25109, race ID 1621 (538 database).