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2016 President · NC

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2016-10-20 (19 days before the election) · 644 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 47.99% · Republican 43.77%

D+4.2

The certified result

Democrat 46.17% · Republican 49.83%

R+3.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.99 − 43.77 = 4.22
  2. Actual margin = 46.173 − 49.828 = -3.655
  3. Signed miss = 4.22 − (-3.655) = 7.875
  4. Absolute miss = |7.875| = 7.875

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47743, race ID 629 (538 database).