Skip to content

2012 President · M1

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 865 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 39%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 59.57% · Republican 38.18%

D+21.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 39 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 59.568 − 38.176 = 21.392
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (21.392) = -1.393
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.393| = 1.393

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30622, race ID 8710 (538 database).