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2012 President · NH

American Research Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-21 (16 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 49%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.98% · Republican 46.40%

D+5.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 49 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.980 − 46.404 = 5.576
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (5.576) = -7.576
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.576| = 7.576

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30233, race ID 683 (538 database).