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2016 President · WI

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2016-10-18 (21 days before the election) · 804 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 38%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.45% · Republican 47.22%

R+0.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 38 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.454 − 47.218 = -0.764
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (-0.764) = 12.764
  4. Absolute miss = |12.764| = 12.764

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47087, race ID 650 (538 database).