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2012 President · national

Gravis Marketing · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 805 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 46%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (3.935) = -5.935
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.935| = 5.935

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30128, race ID 37 (538 database).