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2012 Senate · ND

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-17 (20 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 50%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.24% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 50 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.238 − 49.324 = 0.914
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (0.914) = -5.914
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.914| = 5.914

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30224, race ID 1493 (538 database).