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2012 President · OH

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-11-03 (3 days before the election) · 803 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.67% · Republican 47.69%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.667 − 47.688 = 2.979
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (2.979) = 2.022
  4. Absolute miss = |2.022| = 2.022

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30761, race ID 688 (538 database).