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2012 Senate · VA

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-25 (12 days before the election) · 638 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 47%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.87% · Republican 46.96%

D+5.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 47 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.866 − 46.961 = 5.905
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (5.905) = -10.905
  4. Absolute miss = |-10.905| = 10.905

The poll overstated the Republican by 10.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30481, race ID 1501 (538 database).