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2016 Senate · FL

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2016-10-26 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 49%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.31% · Republican 51.98%

R+7.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 49 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.315 − 51.981 = -7.666
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-7.666) = 5.666
  4. Absolute miss = |5.666| = 5.666

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47756, race ID 93 (538 database).