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2004 Senate · FL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 738 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.32% · Republican 49.43%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.321 − 49.434 = -1.113
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.113) = 4.113
  4. Absolute miss = |4.113| = 4.113

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4549, race ID 1621 (538 database).