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2012 President · IN

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2012-10-29 (8 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 57%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.93% · Republican 54.13%

R+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 57 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.927 − 54.126 = -10.199
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-10.199) = -7.802
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.802| = 7.802

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30519, race ID 668 (538 database).