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2016 Senate · PA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2016-10-25 (14 days before the election) · 550 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 43%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.34% · Republican 48.77%

R+1.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 43 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.341 − 48.774 = -1.433
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-1.433) = 3.432
  4. Absolute miss = |3.432| = 3.432

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47654, race ID 86 (538 database).