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2004 President · IA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-15 (18 days before the election) · 400 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 48%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.23% · Republican 49.90%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.233 − 49.901 = -0.668
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-0.668) = -1.332
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.332| = 1.332

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4728, race ID 767 (538 database).