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2004 President · OH

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-26 (7 days before the election) · 1,500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.71% · Republican 50.81%

R+2.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.707 − 50.814 = -2.107
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-2.107) = -0.893
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.893| = 0.893

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4404, race ID 790 (538 database).