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2016 President · ID

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2016-10-23 (16 days before the election) · 750 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 29% · Republican 48%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 27.49% · Republican 59.26%

R+31.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 29 − 48 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 27.492 − 59.261 = -31.769
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-31.769) = 12.769
  4. Absolute miss = |12.769| = 12.769

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47609, race ID 615 (538 database).