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2004 President · IA

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 49%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.23% · Republican 49.90%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 49 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.233 − 49.901 = -0.668
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-0.668) = -5.332
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.332| = 5.332

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4658, race ID 767 (538 database).