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2016 Senate · SD

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-10-28 (11 days before the election) · 298 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 31% · Republican 67%

R+36.0

The certified result

Democrat 28.17% · Republican 71.83%

R+43.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 31 − 67 = -36.00
  2. Actual margin = 28.172 − 71.828 = -43.656
  3. Signed miss = -36.00 − (-43.656) = 7.656
  4. Absolute miss = |7.656| = 7.656

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47924, race ID 79 (538 database).