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2012 President · OH

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 1,313 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 40%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.67% · Republican 47.69%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 40 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.667 − 47.688 = 2.979
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (2.979) = 5.022
  4. Absolute miss = |5.022| = 5.022

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30600, race ID 688 (538 database).