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2004 Senate · FL

Global Strategy Group · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 700 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 43%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.32% · Republican 49.43%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 43 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.321 − 49.434 = -1.113
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (-1.113) = 5.113
  4. Absolute miss = |5.113| = 5.113

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25134, race ID 1621 (538 database).