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2012 President · PA

Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-25 (12 days before the election) · 547 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 45%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.97% · Republican 46.59%

D+5.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 45 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.972 − 46.587 = 5.385
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (5.385) = -1.385
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.385| = 1.385

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30485, race ID 691 (538 database).