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2004 Senate · PA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 608 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 48%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 52.62%

R+10.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 48 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.987 − 52.618 = -10.631
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-10.631) = 3.630
  4. Absolute miss = |3.630| = 3.630

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4666, race ID 1641 (538 database).