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2012 Senate · WI

St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute · fieldwork ended 2012-10-27 (10 days before the election) · 402 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 46%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.41% · Republican 45.86%

D+5.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 46 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.409 − 45.860 = 5.549
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (5.549) = -8.549
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.549| = 8.549

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30554, race ID 1504 (538 database).