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2004 Senate · MO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 690 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 57%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.80% · Republican 56.09%

R+13.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 57 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.797 − 56.093 = -13.296
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-13.296) = -5.705
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.705| = 5.705

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4330, race ID 1632 (538 database).