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2004 Senate · OK

WPA Intelligence · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 41%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.24% · Republican 52.77%

R+11.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 41 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.245 − 52.765 = -11.520
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-11.520) = 8.520
  4. Absolute miss = |8.520| = 8.520

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4518, race ID 1639 (538 database).