Skip to content

2004 President · WI

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2004-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.700 − 49.320 = 0.380
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (0.380) = -3.380
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.380| = 3.380

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4563, race ID 803 (538 database).