Skip to content

2004 President · WA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 622 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 47%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.82% · Republican 45.64%

D+7.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 47 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.821 − 45.640 = 7.181
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (7.181) = -3.181
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.181| = 3.181

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4328, race ID 802 (538 database).