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2004 President · MT

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 57%

R+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.56% · Republican 59.07%

R+20.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 57 = -21.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.564 − 59.067 = -20.503
  3. Signed miss = -21.00 − (-20.503) = -0.497
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.497| = 0.497

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4596, race ID 781 (538 database).