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2012 President · CO

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.49% · Republican 46.13%

D+5.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.492 − 46.127 = 5.365
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (5.365) = -6.365
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.365| = 6.365

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30412, race ID 658 (538 database).