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2004 Senate · SD

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 49%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.42% · Republican 50.58%

R+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 49 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.424 − 50.576 = -1.152
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-1.152) = -2.848
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.848| = 2.848

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4554, race ID 1643 (538 database).