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2012 President · VA

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2012-11-04 (2 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46.8% · Republican 46.5%

D+0.3

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.8 − 46.5 = 0.30
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = 0.30 − (3.873) = -3.573
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.573| = 3.573

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77904, race ID 698 (538 database).