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2012 Senate · NJ

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2012-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 987 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 36%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.87% · Republican 39.37%

D+19.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 36 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.865 − 39.374 = 19.491
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (19.491) = -4.491
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.491| = 4.491

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30696, race ID 1490 (538 database).