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2016 President · MI

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 3,145 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 42%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.22% · Republican 47.44%

R+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 42 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.216 − 47.439 = -0.223
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-0.223) = 2.223
  4. Absolute miss = |2.223| = 2.223

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 48882, race ID 624 (538 database).