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2016 President · SD

Nielson Brothers Polling · fieldwork ended 2016-10-25 (14 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 49%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 31.74% · Republican 61.53%

R+29.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 49 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 31.737 − 61.531 = -29.794
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-29.794) = 15.793
  4. Absolute miss = |15.793| = 15.793

The poll overstated the Democrat by 15.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47873, race ID 643 (538 database).