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2004 President · SC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 53%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.90% · Republican 57.98%

R+17.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 53 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.903 − 57.981 = -17.078
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (-17.078) = 4.078
  4. Absolute miss = |4.078| = 4.078

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4583, race ID 795 (538 database).