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2012 President · national

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2012-10-22 (15 days before the election) · 1,394 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 49%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 49 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (3.935) = -4.935
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.935| = 4.935

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30275, race ID 37 (538 database).