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2012 President · national

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 1,610 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 42%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 42 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (3.935) = 0.065
  4. Absolute miss = |0.065| = 0.065

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30340, race ID 37 (538 database).