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2012 President · OR

DHM Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 42%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.24% · Republican 42.15%

D+12.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 42 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.239 − 42.150 = 12.089
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (12.089) = -5.089
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.089| = 5.089

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30478, race ID 690 (538 database).