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2004 President · FL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 749 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 48%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.09% · Republican 52.10%

R+5.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 48 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.091 − 52.098 = -5.007
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-5.007) = 7.006
  4. Absolute miss = |7.006| = 7.006

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4549, race ID 764 (538 database).