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2012 Senate · MI

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 1,091 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 41%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.80% · Republican 37.98%

D+20.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 41 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.798 − 37.984 = 20.814
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (20.814) = -8.814
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.814| = 8.814

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30698, race ID 1483 (538 database).