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2012 President · national

Princeton Survey Research Associates International · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 713 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 45%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 45 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (3.935) = 1.065
  4. Absolute miss = |1.065| = 1.065

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30497, race ID 37 (538 database).