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2004 Senate · SC

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2004-10-27 (6 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 48%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.10% · Republican 53.67%

R+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 48 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.101 − 53.666 = -9.565
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-9.565) = 1.566
  4. Absolute miss = |1.566| = 1.566

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25196, race ID 1642 (538 database).