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2012 President · MD

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 705 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 37%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.97% · Republican 35.90%

D+26.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 37 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.974 − 35.898 = 26.076
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (26.076) = -4.076
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.076| = 4.076

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30699, race ID 673 (538 database).