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2004 President · SD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-20 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 55%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.44% · Republican 59.91%

R+21.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 55 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.444 − 59.911 = -21.467
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-21.467) = 2.467
  4. Absolute miss = |2.467| = 2.467

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4581, race ID 796 (538 database).