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2004 Senate · MD

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 455 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 66% · Republican 29%

D+37.0

The certified result

Democrat 64.80% · Republican 33.72%

D+31.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 66 − 29 = 37.00
  2. Actual margin = 64.803 − 33.724 = 31.079
  3. Signed miss = 37.00 − (31.079) = 5.921
  4. Absolute miss = |5.921| = 5.921

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4455, race ID 1631 (538 database).