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2012 President · NJ

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

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 41%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.34% · Republican 40.62%

D+17.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 41 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.342 − 40.624 = 17.718
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (17.718) = -5.719
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.719| = 5.719

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 30696, race ID 684 (538 database).