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2016 President · 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 46% · Republican 39%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.17% · Republican 49.83%

R+3.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 39 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.173 − 49.828 = -3.655
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (-3.655) = 10.655
  4. Absolute miss = |10.655| = 10.655

The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47325, race ID 629 (538 database).