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2000 President · PA

Los Angeles Times · fieldwork ended 2000-10-28 (10 days before the election) · 420 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.61% · Republican 46.44%

D+4.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.608 − 46.438 = 4.170
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (4.170) = -6.170
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.170| = 6.170

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 6315, race ID 844 (538 database).