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2016 President · VA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 2,183 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 41%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.73% · Republican 44.41%

D+5.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 41 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.728 − 44.407 = 5.321
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (5.321) = 2.679
  4. Absolute miss = |2.679| = 2.679

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48906, race ID 647 (538 database).