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2012 Senate · VA

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2012-11-04 (2 days before the election) · 828 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.87% · Republican 46.96%

D+5.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.866 − 46.961 = 5.905
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (5.905) = -2.905
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.905| = 2.905

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30781, race ID 1501 (538 database).