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2012 Senate · IN

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2012-10-31 (6 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 46%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.04% · Republican 44.28%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.044 − 44.280 = 5.764
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (5.764) = -7.764
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.764| = 7.764

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30619, race ID 1479 (538 database).