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2012 President · NC

Elon University · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 1,238 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45.4% · Republican 45.3%

D+0.1

The certified result

Democrat 48.35% · Republican 50.39%

R+2.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45.4 − 45.3 = 0.10
  2. Actual margin = 48.351 − 50.393 = -2.042
  3. Signed miss = 0.10 − (-2.042) = 2.142
  4. Absolute miss = |2.142| = 2.142

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30415, race ID 680 (538 database).