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2012 Senate · FL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-17 (20 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 40%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.23% · Republican 42.23%

D+13.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 40 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.232 − 42.226 = 13.006
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (13.006) = -5.006
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.006| = 5.006

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30152, race ID 1477 (538 database).