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2004 Governor · WA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 620 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 51%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.87% · Republican 48.87%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 51 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.873 − 48.868 = 0.005
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (0.005) = -6.005
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.005| = 6.005

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4328, race ID 1373 (538 database).