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2004 President · SD

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 33% · Republican 55%

R+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.44% · Republican 59.91%

R+21.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 33 − 55 = -22.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.444 − 59.911 = -21.467
  3. Signed miss = -22.00 − (-21.467) = -0.533
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.533| = 0.533

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4554, race ID 796 (538 database).