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2012 President · OH

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2012-11-04 (2 days before the election) · 832 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 42.6%

D+7.4

The certified result

Democrat 50.67% · Republican 47.69%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 42.6 = 7.40
  2. Actual margin = 50.667 − 47.688 = 2.979
  3. Signed miss = 7.40 − (2.979) = 4.422
  4. Absolute miss = |4.422| = 4.422

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30805, race ID 688 (538 database).