Skip to content

2012 President · VA

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-25 (12 days before the election) · 638 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 49%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 49 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (3.873) = -8.873
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.873| = 8.873

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30481, race ID 698 (538 database).