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2012 President · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 63% · Republican 31%

D+32.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.34% · Republican 37.32%

D+23.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 63 − 31 = 32.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.338 − 37.319 = 23.019
  3. Signed miss = 32.00 − (23.019) = 8.981
  4. Absolute miss = |8.981| = 8.981

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30445, race ID 672 (538 database).