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2004 President · OR

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-15 (18 days before the election) · 890 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 55.7% · Republican 42.6%

D+13.1

The certified result

Democrat 51.35% · Republican 47.19%

D+4.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55.7 − 42.6 = 13.10
  2. Actual margin = 51.349 − 47.193 = 4.156
  3. Signed miss = 13.10 − (4.156) = 8.944
  4. Absolute miss = |8.944| = 8.944

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63858, race ID 792 (538 database).