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2004 President · WA

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

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 45%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.82% · Republican 45.64%

D+7.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 45 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.821 − 45.640 = 7.181
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (7.181) = -2.181
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.181| = 2.181

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4447, race ID 802 (538 database).