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2004 President · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 564 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 57%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.90% · Republican 57.98%

R+17.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 57 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.903 − 57.981 = -17.078
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-17.078) = -0.922
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.922| = 0.922

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4543, race ID 795 (538 database).