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2004 President · MI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 668 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 44%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.23% · Republican 47.81%

D+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 44 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.231 − 47.812 = 3.419
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (3.419) = 3.581
  4. Absolute miss = |3.581| = 3.581

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4603, race ID 777 (538 database).