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2012 Senate · OH

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2012-10-16 (21 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 44%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.70% · Republican 44.70%

D+6.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 44 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.701 − 44.700 = 6.001
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (6.001) = -7.001
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.001| = 7.001

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30209, race ID 1494 (538 database).