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2004 President · OR

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 44%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.35% · Republican 47.19%

D+4.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 44 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.349 − 47.193 = 4.156
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (4.156) = 1.844
  4. Absolute miss = |1.844| = 1.844

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4417, race ID 792 (538 database).