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2004 President · GA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-29 (4 days before the election) · 628 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 55%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.38% · Republican 57.98%

R+16.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 55 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.375 − 57.975 = -16.600
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-16.600) = 4.600
  4. Absolute miss = |4.600| = 4.600

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4357, race ID 765 (538 database).