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2004 President · CA

Public Policy Institute of California · fieldwork ended 2004-10-14 (19 days before the election) · 1,170 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 39%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.30% · Republican 44.36%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 39 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.303 − 44.356 = 9.947
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (9.947) = 2.053
  4. Absolute miss = |2.053| = 2.053

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4713, race ID 759 (538 database).