How the poll was done

The results discussed in this section come from a poll conducted Oct. 23-25 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington. The survey was commissioned by The Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV of St. Louis. It draws from telephone interviews, both wireless and landline, of 625 registered Missouri voters who said they are likely to cast ballots in the Nov. 6 election. They were randomly selected from a phone-matched Missouri voter registration list. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter turnout by county.

The margin of error for overall results is plus or minus 4 percent. So a candidate shown in the poll with 54 percent support could actually be experiencing support ranging from 50 percent to 58 percent, although the 54 percent is the mostly likely reflection of public opinion. The margin of error for subgroups, say, Republicans or women, is significantly higher.