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2012 President · NH

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 1,036 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 49%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.98% · Republican 46.40%

D+5.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 49 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.980 − 46.404 = 5.576
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (5.576) = -6.576
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.576| = 6.576

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30136, race ID 683 (538 database).