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2012 President · national

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-20 (17 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 49%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 49 = -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 30205, race ID 37 (538 database).