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2012 Senate · ND

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 47%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.24% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 47 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.238 − 49.324 = 0.914
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (0.914) = -2.914
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.914| = 2.914

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30465, race ID 1493 (538 database).