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2016 Senate · ID

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 612 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 58%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 27.73% · Republican 66.14%

R+38.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 58 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 27.727 − 66.135 = -38.408
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-38.408) = 19.408
  4. Absolute miss = |19.408| = 19.408

The poll overstated the Democrat by 19.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48872, race ID 80 (538 database).