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2004 House · SD-1

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-05-11 (21 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 40%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.57% · Republican 49.43%

D+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 40 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.574 − 49.426 = 1.148
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (1.148) = 7.852
  4. Absolute miss = |7.852| = 7.852

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 5330, race ID 1825 (538 database).