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2012 Senate · MO

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-20 (17 days before the election) · 582 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 40%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.81% · Republican 39.11%

D+15.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 40 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.814 − 39.114 = 15.700
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (15.700) = -9.701
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.701| = 9.701

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30186, race ID 1486 (538 database).