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2012 Senate · MO

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 779 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 42%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.81% · Republican 39.11%

D+15.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 42 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.814 − 39.114 = 15.700
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (15.700) = -5.701
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.701| = 5.701

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30689, race ID 1486 (538 database).