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2016 Senate · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 1,169 respondents · IVR/Online Panel · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.37% · Republican 51.06%

R+5.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.366 − 51.062 = -5.696
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-5.696) = 2.696
  4. Absolute miss = |2.696| = 2.696

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48326, race ID 62 (538 database).