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2012 Senate · NY

Siena College · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 750 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 67% · Republican 24%

D+43.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.11% · Republican 21.28%

D+40.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 67 − 24 = 43.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.109 − 21.283 = 40.826
  3. Signed miss = 43.00 − (40.826) = 2.175
  4. Absolute miss = |2.175| = 2.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30337, race ID 1492 (538 database).