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2004 President · PA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2004-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 45%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.92% · Republican 48.42%

D+2.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 45 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.924 − 48.424 = 2.500
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (2.500) = -1.500
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.500| = 1.500

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 4653, race ID 793 (538 database).