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2012 Senate · MT

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 836 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.58% · Republican 44.86%

D+3.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.578 − 44.860 = 3.718
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (3.718) = -1.718
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.718| = 1.718

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30681, race ID 1487 (538 database).