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2012 Senate · MI

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 700 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 42%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.80% · Republican 37.98%

D+20.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 42 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.798 − 37.984 = 20.814
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (20.814) = -7.814
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.814| = 7.814

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30637, race ID 1483 (538 database).