Skip to content

2016 Senate · ID

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2016-10-22 (17 days before the election) · 1,023 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 24% · Republican 57%

R+33.0

The certified result

Democrat 27.73% · Republican 66.14%

R+38.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 24 − 57 = -33.00
  2. Actual margin = 27.727 − 66.135 = -38.408
  3. Signed miss = -33.00 − (-38.408) = 5.408
  4. Absolute miss = |5.408| = 5.408

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47339, race ID 80 (538 database).