Skip to content

2004 President · national

Opinion Dynamics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 49%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 49 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-2.443) = -4.556
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.556| = 4.556

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15040, race ID 39 (538 database).