Skip to content

2004 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 621 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-4.577) = 2.577
  4. Absolute miss = |2.577| = 2.577

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4668, race ID 1636 (538 database).