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2012 President · WA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 555 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 40%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.16% · Republican 41.30%

D+14.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 40 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.163 − 41.295 = 14.868
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (14.868) = -0.869
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.869| = 0.869

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30543, race ID 700 (538 database).