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2012 Senate · MA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 1,089 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 46%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.27% · Republican 45.79%

D+7.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 46 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.274 − 45.790 = 7.484
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (7.484) = -1.484
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.484| = 1.484

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30624, race ID 1482 (538 database).