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2004 Senate · NC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 45%

even

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 45 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (-4.577) = 4.577
  4. Absolute miss = |4.577| = 4.577

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4599, race ID 1636 (538 database).