Skip to content

2000 President · PA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-10-30 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.61% · Republican 46.44%

D+4.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.608 − 46.438 = 4.170
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (4.170) = -5.170
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.170| = 5.170

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 75512, race ID 844 (538 database).