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2004 President · IA

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2004-10-26 (7 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.23% · Republican 49.90%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.233 − 49.901 = -0.668
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-0.668) = -0.332
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.332| = 0.332

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4445, race ID 767 (538 database).