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2004 President · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 627 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 50%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.58% · Republican 56.02%

R+12.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 50 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.583 − 56.017 = -12.434
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-12.434) = 9.434
  4. Absolute miss = |9.434| = 9.434

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4668, race ID 782 (538 database).