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2012 Senate · NY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 554 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 64% · Republican 22%

D+42.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.11% · Republican 21.28%

D+40.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 64 − 22 = 42.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.109 − 21.283 = 40.826
  3. Signed miss = 42.00 − (40.826) = 1.175
  4. Absolute miss = |1.175| = 1.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30372, race ID 1492 (538 database).