Skip to content

2004 President · PA

Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 787 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.92% · Republican 48.42%

D+2.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.924 − 48.424 = 2.500
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (2.500) = -0.500
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.500| = 0.500

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 4621, race ID 793 (538 database).