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2004 President · NC

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 51%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.58% · Republican 56.02%

R+12.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 51 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.583 − 56.017 = -12.434
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-12.434) = 4.434
  4. Absolute miss = |4.434| = 4.434

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4599, race ID 782 (538 database).