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2004 President · IA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-31 (2 days before the election) · 519 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.23% · Republican 49.90%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.233 − 49.901 = -0.668
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-0.668) = 3.668
  4. Absolute miss = |3.668| = 3.668

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4324, race ID 767 (538 database).