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2004 Governor · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 694 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 39%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.62% · Republican 42.88%

D+12.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 39 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.616 − 42.878 = 12.738
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (12.738) = 5.262
  4. Absolute miss = |5.262| = 5.262

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4550, race ID 1369 (538 database).