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2012 Senate · MA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-25 (12 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 47%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.27% · Republican 45.79%

D+7.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 47 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.274 − 45.790 = 7.484
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (7.484) = -2.484
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.484| = 2.484

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30328, race ID 1482 (538 database).