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2012 President · WI

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-16 (21 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.78% · Republican 45.94%

D+6.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.776 − 45.938 = 6.838
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (6.838) = -4.838
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.838| = 4.838

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30276, race ID 701 (538 database).