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2012 Senate · WI

Marquette University Law School · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 1,243 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 43%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.41% · Republican 45.86%

D+5.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 43 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.409 − 45.860 = 5.549
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (5.549) = -1.549
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.549| = 1.549

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30500, race ID 1504 (538 database).