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2012 House · MN-8

OnMessage Inc. · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 50%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.28% · Republican 45.39%

D+8.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 50 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.282 − 45.388 = 8.894
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (8.894) = -18.894
  4. Absolute miss = |-18.894| = 18.894

The poll overstated the Republican by 18.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51352, race ID 5116 (538 database).