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2012 President · M2

Digital Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 300 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 42%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.94% · Republican 44.38%

D+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 42 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.940 − 44.379 = 8.561
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (8.561) = -1.561
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.561| = 1.561

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30750, race ID 8711 (538 database).