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2004 President · WI

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 678 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 50%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 50 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.700 − 49.320 = 0.380
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (0.380) = -6.380
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.380| = 6.380

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4647, race ID 803 (538 database).