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2012 Governor · NC

Elon University · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 1,238 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 52%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.23% · Republican 54.62%

R+11.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 52 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.229 − 54.623 = -11.394
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-11.394) = -2.606
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.606| = 2.606

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30415, race ID 1263 (538 database).