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2016 President · PA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2016-10-20 (19 days before the election) · 3,704 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42.7% · Republican 41.2%

D+1.5

The certified result

Democrat 47.47% · Republican 48.18%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42.7 − 41.2 = 1.50
  2. Actual margin = 47.465 − 48.183 = -0.718
  3. Signed miss = 1.50 − (-0.718) = 2.218
  4. Absolute miss = |2.218| = 2.218

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48757, race ID 640 (538 database).