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2004 Senate · PA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 758 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 54%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 52.62%

R+10.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 54 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.987 − 52.618 = -10.631
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-10.631) = -8.370
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.370| = 8.370

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4327, race ID 1641 (538 database).