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2004 President · national

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2004-10-16 (17 days before the election) · 3,000 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47.3% · Republican 47.5%

R+0.2

The certified result

Democrat 48.13% · Republican 50.57%

R+2.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.3 − 47.5 = -0.20
  2. Actual margin = 48.130 − 50.573 = -2.443
  3. Signed miss = -0.20 − (-2.443) = 2.244
  4. Absolute miss = |2.244| = 2.244

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77279, race ID 39 (538 database).