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2004 Senate · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 559 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 52%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.10% · Republican 53.67%

R+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 52 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.101 − 53.666 = -9.565
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (-9.565) = -3.434
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.434| = 3.434

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4543, race ID 1642 (538 database).