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2012 Senate · ME

Maine People's Resource Center · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 905 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 10.7% · Republican 34%

R+23.3

The certified result

Democrat 13.26% · Republican 30.75%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 10.7 − 34 = -23.30
  2. Actual margin = 13.260 − 30.745 = -17.485
  3. Signed miss = -23.30 − (-17.485) = -5.815
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.815| = 5.815

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30802, race ID 1480 (538 database).