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2004 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 616 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 50%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 50 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-4.577) = -0.423
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.423| = 0.423

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4326, race ID 1636 (538 database).