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2012 President · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-28 (9 days before the election) · 682 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 50%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.35% · Republican 50.39%

R+2.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 50 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.351 − 50.393 = -2.042
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-2.042) = -2.958
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.958| = 2.958

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30469, race ID 680 (538 database).