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2012 House · IL-11

We Ask America · fieldwork ended 2012-10-28 (9 days before the election) · 1,303 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 50%

even

The certified result

Democrat 58.56% · Republican 41.43%

D+17.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 50 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.565 − 41.427 = 17.138
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (17.138) = -17.138
  4. Absolute miss = |-17.138| = 17.138

The poll overstated the Republican by 17.1 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51349, race ID 5038 (538 database).