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2012 Senate · FL

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

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 43%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.23% · Republican 42.23%

D+13.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 43 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.232 − 42.226 = 13.006
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (13.006) = -8.006
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.006| = 8.006

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30123, race ID 1477 (538 database).