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2012 House · IL-17

We Ask America · fieldwork ended 2012-10-28 (9 days before the election) · 1,325 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 52%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.27% · Republican 46.72%

D+6.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 52 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.275 − 46.718 = 6.557
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (6.557) = -10.557
  4. Absolute miss = |-10.557| = 10.557

The poll overstated the Republican by 10.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51349, race ID 5044 (538 database).