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2004 President · OK

WPA Intelligence · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 28% · Republican 61%

R+33.0

The certified result

Democrat 34.43% · Republican 65.57%

R+31.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 28 − 61 = -33.00
  2. Actual margin = 34.430 − 65.570 = -31.140
  3. Signed miss = -33.00 − (-31.140) = -1.859
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.859| = 1.859

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4518, race ID 791 (538 database).