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2004 President · MN

St. Cloud State University · fieldwork ended 2004-10-21 (12 days before the election) · 508 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 42%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.09% · Republican 47.61%

D+3.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 42 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.090 − 47.614 = 3.476
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (3.476) = 3.524
  4. Absolute miss = |3.524| = 3.524

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4619, race ID 778 (538 database).