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2012 President · M2

Gravis Marketing · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 509 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.94% · Republican 44.38%

D+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.940 − 44.379 = 8.561
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (8.561) = -5.561
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.561| = 5.561

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30616, race ID 8711 (538 database).