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2004 President · RI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-26 (7 days before the election) · 594 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 41%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 59.42% · Republican 38.67%

D+20.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 41 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 59.423 − 38.671 = 20.752
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (20.752) = -7.752
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.752| = 7.752

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4450, race ID 794 (538 database).