Skip to content

2012 President · OR

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-31 (6 days before the election) · 921 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 46%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.24% · Republican 42.15%

D+12.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 46 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.239 − 42.150 = 12.089
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (12.089) = -6.089
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.089| = 6.089

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 75054, race ID 690 (538 database).