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2004 President · AR

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-15 (18 days before the election) · 520 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48.4% · Republican 49.7%

R+1.3

The certified result

Democrat 44.55% · Republican 54.31%

R+9.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48.4 − 49.7 = -1.30
  2. Actual margin = 44.548 − 54.306 = -9.758
  3. Signed miss = -1.30 − (-9.758) = 8.458
  4. Absolute miss = |8.458| = 8.458

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63833, race ID 757 (538 database).