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2012 President · national

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48.7% · Republican 48.5%

D+0.2

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48.7 − 48.5 = 0.20
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = 0.20 − (3.935) = -3.735
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.735| = 3.735

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30575, race ID 37 (538 database).