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2004 Senate · SD

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 48%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.42% · Republican 50.58%

R+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.424 − 50.576 = -1.152
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-1.152) = -0.848
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.848| = 0.848

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25378, race ID 1643 (538 database).