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2012 Senate · CA

Field Research Corp. (Field Poll) · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 1,566 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 33%

D+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.52% · Republican 37.48%

D+25.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 33 = 21.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.524 − 37.476 = 25.048
  3. Signed miss = 21.00 − (25.048) = -4.049
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.049| = 4.049

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30638, race ID 1474 (538 database).