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2012 President · MI

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 45%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.21% · Republican 44.71%

D+9.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 45 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.208 − 44.711 = 9.497
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (9.497) = -1.497
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.497| = 1.497

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 30520, race ID 675 (538 database).