Skip to content

2004 President · WI

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-28 (5 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.70% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.700 − 49.320 = 0.380
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (0.380) = 1.620
  4. Absolute miss = |1.620| = 1.620

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4420, race ID 803 (538 database).