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2004 President · AR

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 617 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 51%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.55% · Republican 54.31%

R+9.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 51 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.548 − 54.306 = -9.758
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-9.758) = 4.758
  4. Absolute miss = |4.758| = 4.758

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25276, race ID 757 (538 database).