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2012 Governor · MT

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2012-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 49%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.91% · Republican 47.34%

D+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 49 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.905 − 47.339 = 1.566
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (1.566) = -4.566
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.566| = 4.566

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51340, race ID 1258 (538 database).