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2004 Senate · WA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 640 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 38%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.98% · Republican 42.74%

D+12.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 38 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.980 − 42.736 = 12.244
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (12.244) = 5.756
  4. Absolute miss = |5.756| = 5.756

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4669, race ID 1646 (538 database).