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2012 Senate · ND

Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2012-10-23 (14 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 44%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.24% · Republican 49.32%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 44 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.238 − 49.324 = 0.914
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (0.914) = 3.086
  4. Absolute miss = |3.086| = 3.086

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73146, race ID 1493 (538 database).