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2000 President · VA

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2000-10-24 (14 days before the election) · 1,009 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 49%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.44% · Republican 52.47%

R+8.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 49 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.436 − 52.474 = -8.038
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-8.038) = 4.038
  4. Absolute miss = |4.038| = 4.038

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25901, race ID 851 (538 database).