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2004 President · ME

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 660 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 45%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.57% · Republican 44.58%

D+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 45 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.573 − 44.576 = 8.997
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (8.997) = -2.996
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.996| = 2.996

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4630, race ID 776 (538 database).