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2012 President · HI

MRG Research · fieldwork ended 2012-10-26 (11 days before the election) · 1,218 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 61% · Republican 34%

D+27.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.55% · Republican 27.84%

D+42.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 61 − 34 = 27.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.545 − 27.839 = 42.706
  3. Signed miss = 27.00 − (42.706) = -15.706
  4. Absolute miss = |-15.706| = 15.706

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30541, race ID 664 (538 database).