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2016 President · NH

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2016-11-01 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41.8% · Republican 42.2%

R+0.4

The certified result

Democrat 46.83% · Republican 46.46%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41.8 − 42.2 = -0.40
  2. Actual margin = 46.826 − 46.459 = 0.367
  3. Signed miss = -0.40 − (0.367) = -0.768
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.768| = 0.768

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48194, race ID 632 (538 database).