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2012 President · WI

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

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 43%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.78% · Republican 45.94%

D+6.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 43 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.776 − 45.938 = 6.838
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (6.838) = 1.162
  4. Absolute miss = |1.162| = 1.162

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30500, race ID 701 (538 database).