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2003 Governor · LA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2003-11-05 (10 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 48%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.95% · Republican 48.05%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 48 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.949 − 48.051 = 3.898
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (3.898) = -8.898
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.898| = 8.898

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63948, race ID 1378 (538 database).