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2016 Senate · WI

McLaughlin & Associates · fieldwork ended 2016-10-19 (20 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 46%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.81% · Republican 50.17%

R+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 46 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.811 − 50.173 = -3.362
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-3.362) = 5.362
  4. Absolute miss = |5.362| = 5.362

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47463, race ID 71 (538 database).