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2016 President · national

Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2016-10-23 (16 days before the election) · 724 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 34%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.00% · Republican 45.81%

D+2.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 34 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.997 − 45.815 = 2.182
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (2.182) = 6.819
  4. Absolute miss = |6.819| = 6.819

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47550, race ID 94 (538 database).