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2016 Governor · NC

The New York Times/Siena College · fieldwork ended 2016-10-22 (17 days before the election) · 792 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 45%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.02% · Republican 48.80%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 45 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.016 − 48.798 = 0.218
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (0.218) = 5.782
  4. Absolute miss = |5.782| = 5.782

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47325, race ID 52 (538 database).