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2004 President · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 694 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 54%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.58% · Republican 56.02%

R+12.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 54 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.583 − 56.017 = -12.434
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-12.434) = 2.434
  4. Absolute miss = |2.434| = 2.434

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4550, race ID 782 (538 database).