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2012 House · NY-18

Siena College · fieldwork ended 2012-10-16 (21 days before the election) · 615 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 49%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.83% · Republican 38.38%

D+6.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 49 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.834 − 38.379 = 6.455
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (6.455) = -13.455
  4. Absolute miss = |-13.455| = 13.455

The poll overstated the Republican by 13.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51373, race ID 5171 (538 database).