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2004 President · IL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 665 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 42%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.82% · Republican 44.48%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 42 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.823 − 44.479 = 10.344
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (10.344) = 1.655
  4. Absolute miss = |1.655| = 1.655

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4385, race ID 769 (538 database).