Skip to content

2004 President · NC

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 52%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.58% · Republican 56.02%

R+12.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 52 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.583 − 56.017 = -12.434
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-12.434) = 3.434
  4. Absolute miss = |3.434| = 3.434

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4456, race ID 782 (538 database).