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2000 President · national

CBS News/The New York Times · fieldwork ended 2000-10-20 (18 days before the election) · 825 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 46%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.15% · Republican 47.66%

D+0.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.149 − 47.657 = 0.492
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (0.492) = -2.492
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.492| = 2.492

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 28094, race ID 40 (538 database).