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2012 President · VA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 750 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 50%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 50 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (3.873) = -6.873
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.873| = 6.873

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30122, race ID 698 (538 database).