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2004 President · PA

Quinnipiac University · fieldwork ended 2004-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 909 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 49%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.92% · Republican 48.42%

D+2.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 49 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.924 − 48.424 = 2.500
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (2.500) = -4.500
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.500| = 4.500

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4517, race ID 793 (538 database).