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2012 Senate · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-17 (20 days before the election) · 577 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 33%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.87% · Republican 39.37%

D+19.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 33 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.865 − 39.374 = 19.491
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (19.491) = 0.509
  4. Absolute miss = |0.509| = 0.509

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30154, race ID 1490 (538 database).