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2012 President · OH

Clout Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 1,281 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 49%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.67% · Republican 47.69%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 49 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.667 − 47.688 = 2.979
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (2.979) = -5.978
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.978| = 5.978

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30557, race ID 688 (538 database).