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2012 House · UT-4

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 52%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.84% · Republican 48.53%

D+0.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 52 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.844 − 48.531 = 0.313
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (0.313) = -12.313
  4. Absolute miss = |-12.313| = 12.313

The poll overstated the Republican by 12.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51338, race ID 5297 (538 database).