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2012 Senate · MT

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-29 (8 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 48%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.58% · Republican 44.86%

D+3.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 48 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.578 − 44.860 = 3.718
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (3.718) = -2.718
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.718| = 2.718

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30580, race ID 1487 (538 database).