Skip to content

2004 President · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 664 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.48% · Republican 53.68%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.484 − 53.682 = -8.198
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-8.198) = 4.198
  4. Absolute miss = |4.198| = 4.198

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4646, race ID 800 (538 database).