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2012 President · CA

Field Research Corp. (Field Poll) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 1,566 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 39%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.24% · Republican 37.12%

D+23.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 39 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.239 − 37.120 = 23.119
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (23.119) = -8.119
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.119| = 8.119

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30638, race ID 657 (538 database).