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2004 Senate · NC

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-20 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 49%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 49 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-4.577) = 0.577
  4. Absolute miss = |0.577| = 0.577

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25251, race ID 1636 (538 database).