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2012 President · IN

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 768 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 51%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.93% · Republican 54.13%

R+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 51 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.927 − 54.126 = -10.199
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-10.199) = 3.198
  4. Absolute miss = |3.198| = 3.198

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30688, race ID 668 (538 database).