2016 Senate · PA
Big Village · fieldwork ended 2016-10-29 (10 days before the election) · 799 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 51% · Republican 46%
D+5.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.34% · Republican 48.77%
R+1.4
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 51 − 46 = 5.00
- Actual margin = 47.341 − 48.774 = -1.433
- Signed miss = 5.00 − (-1.433) = 6.432
- Absolute miss = |6.432| = 6.432
The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.4 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48090, race ID 86 (538 database).