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2004 Governor · WA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 43%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.87% · Republican 48.87%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 43 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.873 − 48.868 = 0.005
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (0.005) = 4.995
  4. Absolute miss = |4.995| = 4.995

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4447, race ID 1373 (538 database).