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2012 President · NE

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 56%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.03% · Republican 59.80%

R+21.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 56 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.027 − 59.803 = -21.776
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-21.776) = 3.776
  4. Absolute miss = |3.776| = 3.776

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73231, race ID 682 (538 database).