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2004 President · AR

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 646 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 48%

even

The certified result

Democrat 44.55% · Republican 54.31%

R+9.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 48 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.548 − 54.306 = -9.758
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (-9.758) = 9.758
  4. Absolute miss = |9.758| = 9.758

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.8 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25275, race ID 757 (538 database).