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2004 President · PA

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2004-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.92% · Republican 48.42%

D+2.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.924 − 48.424 = 2.500
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (2.500) = 0.500
  4. Absolute miss = |0.500| = 0.500

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4509, race ID 793 (538 database).