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2004 President · WI

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2004-10-29 (4 days before the election) · 1,119 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 52%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 52 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.700 − 49.320 = 0.380
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (0.380) = -8.380
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.380| = 8.380

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4384, race ID 803 (538 database).