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2012 House · NC-7

Clout Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 45%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.10% · Republican 49.90%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 45 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.097 − 49.903 = 0.194
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (0.194) = -6.194
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.194| = 6.194

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 52386, race ID 5187 (538 database).