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2004 Senate · FL

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2004-10-29 (4 days before the election) · 1,138 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.32% · Republican 49.43%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.321 − 49.434 = -1.113
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-1.113) = 3.113
  4. Absolute miss = |3.113| = 3.113

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 58435, race ID 1621 (538 database).