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2004 President · IA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 690 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 51%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.23% · Republican 49.90%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 51 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.233 − 49.901 = -0.668
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-0.668) = -5.332
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.332| = 5.332

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4612, race ID 767 (538 database).