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2012 President · VA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 47%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 47 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (3.873) = -1.873
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.873| = 1.873

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30164, race ID 698 (538 database).