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2012 Senate · PA

Angus Reid Global · fieldwork ended 2012-10-19 (18 days before the election) · 559 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 39%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.69% · Republican 44.59%

D+9.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 39 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.690 − 44.588 = 9.102
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (9.102) = -4.102
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.102| = 4.102

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30218, race ID 1495 (538 database).