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2004 President · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 606 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 51%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.48% · Republican 53.68%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 51 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.484 − 53.682 = -8.198
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-8.198) = 4.198
  4. Absolute miss = |4.198| = 4.198

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4394, race ID 800 (538 database).