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2012 House · NY-21

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2012-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 40%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.85% · Republican 38.84%

D+5.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 40 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.855 − 38.836 = 5.019
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (5.019) = -3.019
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.019| = 3.019

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51342, race ID 5174 (538 database).