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2012 President · IA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 869 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 49%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.99% · Republican 46.18%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 49 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.988 − 46.178 = 5.810
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (5.810) = -6.810
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.810| = 6.810

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30137, race ID 665 (538 database).