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2012 President · NJ

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

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 40%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.34% · Republican 40.62%

D+17.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 40 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.342 − 40.624 = 17.718
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (17.718) = -3.719
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.719| = 3.719

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30154, race ID 684 (538 database).