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2012 Senate · NV

Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-16 (21 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 38%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.71% · Republican 45.87%

R+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 38 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.706 − 45.866 = -1.160
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.160) = 4.160
  4. Absolute miss = |4.160| = 4.160

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30111, race ID 1489 (538 database).