Skip to content

2016 President · MN

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2016-10-21 (18 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 39%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.45% · Republican 44.92%

D+1.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 39 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.445 − 44.925 = 1.520
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (1.520) = 6.480
  4. Absolute miss = |6.480| = 6.480

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47319, race ID 625 (538 database).