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2016 President · IA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,781 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 47%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.75% · Republican 51.16%

R+9.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 47 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.753 − 51.162 = -9.409
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-9.409) = 0.410
  4. Absolute miss = |0.410| = 0.410

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48875, race ID 614 (538 database).