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2012 Senate · ND

Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 42%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.24% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 42 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.238 − 49.324 = 0.914
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (0.914) = 2.086
  4. Absolute miss = |2.086| = 2.086

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30210, race ID 1493 (538 database).