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2000 President · OR

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-10-29 (9 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 50%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.96% · Republican 46.52%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 50 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.960 − 46.519 = 0.441
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (0.441) = -8.441
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.441| = 8.441

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63741, race ID 843 (538 database).