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2016 President · MI

Mitchell Research & Communications · fieldwork ended 2016-10-23 (16 days before the election) · 1,241 respondents · IVR/Text

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 41%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.22% · Republican 47.44%

R+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 41 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.216 − 47.439 = -0.223
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (-0.223) = 8.223
  4. Absolute miss = |8.223| = 8.223

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47321, race ID 624 (538 database).