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2012 Governor · WI

St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute · fieldwork ended 2012-05-19 (17 days before the election) · 406 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 50%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.28% · Republican 53.08%

R+6.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 50 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.282 − 53.082 = -6.800
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-6.800) = 1.800
  4. Absolute miss = |1.800| = 1.800

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16380, race ID 1269 (538 database).