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2004 President · PA

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 1,082 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.92% · Republican 48.42%

D+2.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.924 − 48.424 = 2.500
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (2.500) = -6.500
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.500| = 6.500

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4345, race ID 793 (538 database).