Skip to content

2016 President · PA

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 525 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 44%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.47% · Republican 48.18%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 44 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.465 − 48.183 = -0.718
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-0.718) = 1.718
  4. Absolute miss = |1.718| = 1.718

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48112, race ID 640 (538 database).