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2004 Senate · SD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-20 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 47%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.42% · Republican 50.58%

R+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 47 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.424 − 50.576 = -1.152
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-1.152) = 3.152
  4. Absolute miss = |3.152| = 3.152

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4581, race ID 1643 (538 database).