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2016 Senate · AR

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 930 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 56%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.17% · Republican 59.77%

R+23.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 56 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.171 − 59.772 = -23.601
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-23.601) = 8.601
  4. Absolute miss = |8.601| = 8.601

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48863, race ID 83 (538 database).