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2012 President · CO

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 1,226 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 46%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.49% · Republican 46.13%

D+5.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 46 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.492 − 46.127 = 5.365
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (5.365) = -8.365
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.365| = 8.365

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30604, race ID 658 (538 database).