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2012 President · MO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2012-10-31 (6 days before the election) · 589 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 50%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.38% · Republican 53.76%

R+9.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 50 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.383 − 53.764 = -9.381
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-9.381) = 2.380
  4. Absolute miss = |2.380| = 2.380

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30736, race ID 677 (538 database).