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2012 President · IA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-03 (3 days before the election) · 1,122 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 48%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.99% · Republican 46.18%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 48 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.988 − 46.178 = 5.810
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (5.810) = -3.810
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.810| = 3.810

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30728, race ID 665 (538 database).