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2000 President · national

CBS News/The New York Times · fieldwork ended 2000-11-03 (4 days before the election) · 1,158 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 47%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.15% · Republican 47.66%

D+0.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 47 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.149 − 47.657 = 0.492
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (0.492) = -5.492
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.492| = 5.492

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 6188, race ID 40 (538 database).