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2004 Senate · NC

Global Strategy Group · fieldwork ended 2004-10-20 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 44%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 44 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-4.577) = 6.577
  4. Absolute miss = |6.577| = 6.577

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25137, race ID 1636 (538 database).