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2004 Senate · WA

Elway Research · fieldwork ended 2004-10-15 (18 days before the election) · 405 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 37%

D+17.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.98% · Republican 42.74%

D+12.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 37 = 17.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.980 − 42.736 = 12.244
  3. Signed miss = 17.00 − (12.244) = 4.756
  4. Absolute miss = |4.756| = 4.756

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4685, race ID 1646 (538 database).