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2012 President · VA

Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2012-11-01 (5 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.16% · Republican 47.28%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.156 − 47.283 = 3.873
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (3.873) = -0.873
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.873| = 0.873

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30757, race ID 698 (538 database).