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2012 House · IL-8

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2012-10-25 (12 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 40%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.74% · Republican 45.26%

D+9.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 40 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.742 − 45.258 = 9.484
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (9.484) = 4.516
  4. Absolute miss = |4.516| = 4.516

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51323, race ID 5035 (538 database).