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2012 Senate · MA

Western New England University Polling Institute · fieldwork ended 2012-10-29 (8 days before the election) · 535 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 46%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.27% · Republican 45.79%

D+7.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 46 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.274 − 45.790 = 7.484
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (7.484) = -3.484
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.484| = 3.484

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30650, race ID 1482 (538 database).