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2012 President · M1

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

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 43%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 59.57% · Republican 38.18%

D+21.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 43 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 59.568 − 38.176 = 21.392
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (21.392) = -15.393
  4. Absolute miss = |-15.393| = 15.393

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30751, race ID 8710 (538 database).