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2000 President · national

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2000-10-20 (18 days before the election) · 1,071 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.15% · Republican 47.66%

D+0.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.149 − 47.657 = 0.492
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (0.492) = -3.492
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.492| = 3.492

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 6440, race ID 40 (538 database).