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2004 Senate · AK

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 48%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.55% · Republican 48.58%

R+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 48 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.546 − 48.578 = -3.032
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-3.032) = -1.968
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.968| = 1.968

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25195, race ID 1615 (538 database).