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2004 Governor · NC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 38%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.62% · Republican 42.88%

D+12.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 38 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.616 − 42.878 = 12.738
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (12.738) = 3.262
  4. Absolute miss = |3.262| = 3.262

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4456, race ID 1369 (538 database).