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2004 President · M2

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 330 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 44%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.95% · Republican 46.13%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 44 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.953 − 46.127 = 5.826
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (5.826) = 3.174
  4. Absolute miss = |3.174| = 3.174

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 74497, race ID 8701 (538 database).