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2012 President · PA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 1,273 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 44%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.97% · Republican 46.59%

D+5.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 44 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.972 − 46.587 = 5.385
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (5.385) = 2.615
  4. Absolute miss = |2.615| = 2.615

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30693, race ID 691 (538 database).