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2004 President · VA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 50%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.48% · Republican 53.68%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 50 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.484 − 53.682 = -8.198
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-8.198) = 2.198
  4. Absolute miss = |2.198| = 2.198

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 4530, race ID 800 (538 database).