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2012 President · MO

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 54%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.38% · Republican 53.76%

R+9.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 54 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.383 − 53.764 = -9.381
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (-9.381) = -3.620
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.620| = 3.620

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30360, race ID 677 (538 database).