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2012 President · VA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-03 (3 days before the election) · 975 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 47%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 47 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (3.873) = 0.127
  4. Absolute miss = |0.127| = 0.127

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30742, race ID 698 (538 database).