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2012 Senate · PA

Clout Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-22 (15 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45.2% · Republican 44%

D+1.2

The certified result

Democrat 53.69% · Republican 44.59%

D+9.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45.2 − 44 = 1.20
  2. Actual margin = 53.690 − 44.588 = 9.102
  3. Signed miss = 1.20 − (9.102) = -7.902
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.902| = 7.902

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73465, race ID 1495 (538 database).