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2012 President · MT

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 53%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.70% · Republican 55.35%

R+13.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 53 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.698 − 55.352 = -13.654
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-13.654) = 3.653
  4. Absolute miss = |3.653| = 3.653

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51340, race ID 679 (538 database).