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2004 Governor · NH

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 44%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.02% · Republican 48.87%

D+2.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 44 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.018 − 48.871 = 2.147
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (2.147) = -4.147
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.147| = 4.147

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4675, race ID 1371 (538 database).