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2012 President · IA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-21 (16 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 48%

even

The certified result

Democrat 51.99% · Republican 46.18%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 48 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.988 − 46.178 = 5.810
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (5.810) = -5.810
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.810| = 5.810

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.8 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30202, race ID 665 (538 database).