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2012 President · MA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 1,089 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 42%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.34% · Republican 37.32%

D+23.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 42 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.338 − 37.319 = 23.019
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (23.019) = -8.019
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.019| = 8.019

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30624, race ID 672 (538 database).