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2004 President · national

Opinion Dynamics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-2.443) = 4.444
  4. Absolute miss = |4.444| = 4.444

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15032, race ID 39 (538 database).