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2016 House · SD-1

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2016-10-19 (20 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 59%

R+24.0

The certified result

Democrat 35.90% · Republican 64.10%

R+28.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 59 = -24.00
  2. Actual margin = 35.897 − 64.103 = -28.206
  3. Signed miss = -24.00 − (-28.206) = 4.206
  4. Absolute miss = |4.206| = 4.206

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47343, race ID 6122 (538 database).