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2004 Senate · IN

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 597 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 63% · Republican 31%

D+32.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.65% · Republican 37.23%

D+24.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 63 − 31 = 32.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.649 − 37.225 = 24.424
  3. Signed miss = 32.00 − (24.424) = 7.576
  4. Absolute miss = |7.576| = 7.576

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4628, race ID 1626 (538 database).