Skip to content

2004 President · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 743 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 44%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.30% · Republican 44.36%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 44 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.303 − 44.356 = 9.947
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (9.947) = -0.947
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.947| = 0.947

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4512, race ID 759 (538 database).