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2012 President · FL

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-31 (6 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 51%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.01% · Republican 49.13%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 51 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.008 − 49.131 = 0.877
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (0.877) = -6.877
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.877| = 6.877

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30625, race ID 662 (538 database).