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2004 President · SD

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-12 (21 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 52%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.44% · Republican 59.91%

R+21.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 52 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.444 − 59.911 = -21.467
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-21.467) = 11.467
  4. Absolute miss = |11.467| = 11.467

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4705, race ID 796 (538 database).