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2016 Senate · IL

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,823 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 39%

D+17.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.86% · Republican 39.78%

D+15.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 39 = 17.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.862 − 39.780 = 15.082
  3. Signed miss = 17.00 − (15.082) = 1.919
  4. Absolute miss = |1.919| = 1.919

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48874, race ID 84 (538 database).