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2012 Senate · NY

Marist College · fieldwork ended 2012-10-20 (17 days before the election) · 565 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 68% · Republican 24%

D+44.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.11% · Republican 21.28%

D+40.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 68 − 24 = 44.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.109 − 21.283 = 40.826
  3. Signed miss = 44.00 − (40.826) = 3.175
  4. Absolute miss = |3.175| = 3.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30282, race ID 1492 (538 database).