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2016 President · national

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2016-10-22 (17 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47.4% · Republican 37.6%

D+9.8

The certified result

Democrat 48.00% · Republican 45.81%

D+2.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.4 − 37.6 = 9.80
  2. Actual margin = 47.997 − 45.815 = 2.182
  3. Signed miss = 9.80 − (2.182) = 7.619
  4. Absolute miss = |7.619| = 7.619

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47530, race ID 94 (538 database).