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2016 Senate · NC

Gravis Marketing · fieldwork ended 2016-10-25 (14 days before the election) · 1,273 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.37% · Republican 51.06%

R+5.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.366 − 51.062 = -5.696
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-5.696) = 8.696
  4. Absolute miss = |8.696| = 8.696

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47766, race ID 62 (538 database).