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2012 President · VA

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 1,126 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 46%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (3.873) = -5.873
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.873| = 5.873

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 30311, race ID 698 (538 database).