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2004 Senate · KY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 623 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 53%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.34% · Republican 50.66%

R+1.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 53 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.343 − 50.657 = -1.314
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-1.314) = -12.686
  4. Absolute miss = |-12.686| = 12.686

The poll overstated the Republican by 12.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4629, race ID 1629 (538 database).