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2012 President · national

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2012-11-04 (2 days before the election) · 1,041 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46.9% · Republican 47.2%

R+0.3

The certified result

Democrat 50.91% · Republican 46.97%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.9 − 47.2 = -0.30
  2. Actual margin = 50.909 − 46.974 = 3.935
  3. Signed miss = -0.30 − (3.935) = -4.235
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.235| = 4.235

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 30807, race ID 37 (538 database).