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2004 President · MD

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 455 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 38%

D+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.91% · Republican 42.93%

D+13.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 38 = 21.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.914 − 42.934 = 12.980
  3. Signed miss = 21.00 − (12.980) = 8.020
  4. Absolute miss = |8.020| = 8.020

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4455, race ID 775 (538 database).