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2012 President · VA

Clout Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-19 (18 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 47.1% · Republican 49.2%

R+2.1

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.1 − 49.2 = -2.10
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = -2.10 − (3.873) = -5.973
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.973| = 5.973

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30207, race ID 698 (538 database).