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2004 Senate · NC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-25 (8 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46.4% · Republican 46.1%

D+0.3

The certified result

Democrat 47.02% · Republican 51.60%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.4 − 46.1 = 0.30
  2. Actual margin = 47.019 − 51.596 = -4.577
  3. Signed miss = 0.30 − (-4.577) = 4.877
  4. Absolute miss = |4.877| = 4.877

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4456, race ID 1636 (538 database).