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2004 President · CA

Field Research Corp. (Field Poll) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 1,086 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 42%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.30% · Republican 44.36%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 42 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.303 − 44.356 = 9.947
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (9.947) = -2.947
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.947| = 2.947

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4556, race ID 759 (538 database).