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2012 Senate · ME

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 1,633 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 12% · Republican 36%

R+24.0

The certified result

Democrat 13.26% · Republican 30.75%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 12 − 36 = -24.00
  2. Actual margin = 13.260 − 30.745 = -17.485
  3. Signed miss = -24.00 − (-17.485) = -6.515
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.515| = 6.515

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30620, race ID 1480 (538 database).