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2004 Senate · WA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 39%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.98% · Republican 42.74%

D+12.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 39 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.980 − 42.736 = 12.244
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (12.244) = 1.756
  4. Absolute miss = |1.756| = 1.756

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4447, race ID 1646 (538 database).