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2004 President · MN

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.09% · Republican 47.61%

D+3.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.090 − 47.614 = 3.476
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (3.476) = -5.476
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.476| = 5.476

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4656, race ID 778 (538 database).