Skip to content

2012 President · 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 58% · Republican 40%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.34% · Republican 37.32%

D+23.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 58 − 40 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.338 − 37.319 = 23.019
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (23.019) = -5.019
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.019| = 5.019

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30650, race ID 672 (538 database).