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2004 Senate · CO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 596 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.30% · Republican 46.53%

D+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.303 − 46.533 = 4.770
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (4.770) = -8.770
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.770| = 8.770

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4611, race ID 1619 (538 database).