Skip to content

2004 President · national

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-22 (11 days before the election) · 3,000 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47.2% · Republican 47.6%

R+0.4

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.2 − 47.6 = -0.40
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = -0.40 − (-2.443) = 2.044
  4. Absolute miss = |2.044| = 2.044

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77274, race ID 39 (538 database).