The 2012 Debrief · post-mortem · permanent archive
How did the polling industry do this cycle?
The 2012 industry MAE landed at 4.7pt — graded across 514 historical races with a known outcome — and 200 polls were analyzed across 88 pollsters. Signed bias +3.54pt: pollsters again systematically over-predicted Republicans.
INDUSTRY MAE
4.7pt
vs midterm avg
SIGNED BIAS
+3.54pt
R-leaning
POLLS · POLLSTERS
200
88 firms
RACES SCORED
514
w/ known outcome
Industry mean absolute error · 2002–2012
Per-pollster scorecard · 2012 · sorted by MAE
Signed bias · ±8.7pt
MAE · 0–8.7pt
Biggest-miss races · 2012
| Race | Expected | Actual | Miss | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| us-senate-2012-ne | R+3.00 | R+15.54 | -12.5pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2012-mo | D+4.00 | D+15.70 | 11.7pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-governor-2012-nh | D+3.00 | D+12.09 | 9.1pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2012-ct | D+4.00 | D+12.46 | 8.5pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2012-mi | D+13.00 | D+20.82 | 7.8pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2012-hi | D+18.50 | D+25.20 | 6.7pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-governor-2012-ut | R+46.00 | R+40.83 | 5.2pt | R-margin overestimate |
| us-senate-2012-fl | D+8.00 | D+13.00 | 5.0pt | D-margin underestimate |