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2004 President · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 794 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 42%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.92% · Republican 46.24%

D+6.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 42 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.923 − 46.239 = 6.684
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (6.684) = 5.315
  4. Absolute miss = |5.315| = 5.315

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4386, race ID 786 (538 database).