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2004 President · WV

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

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 49%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.20% · Republican 56.06%

R+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 49 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.200 − 56.064 = -12.864
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-12.864) = 7.864
  4. Absolute miss = |7.864| = 7.864

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4684, race ID 804 (538 database).