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2018 Senate · FL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2018-10-20 (17 days before the election) · 665 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 41%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.93% · Republican 50.05%

R+0.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 41 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.932 − 50.055 = -0.123
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (-0.123) = 8.123
  4. Absolute miss = |8.123| = 8.123

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56365, race ID 100 (538 database).