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2004 President · MO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 670 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 51%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.10% · Republican 53.30%

R+7.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 51 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.100 − 53.296 = -7.196
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-7.196) = 1.196
  4. Absolute miss = |1.196| = 1.196

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4644, race ID 779 (538 database).