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2004 President · NJ

Fairleigh Dickinson University · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 503 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 41%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.92% · Republican 46.24%

D+6.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 41 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.923 − 46.239 = 6.684
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (6.684) = 1.315
  4. Absolute miss = |1.315| = 1.315

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4696, race ID 786 (538 database).