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2016 Senate · SD

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

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 54%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 28.17% · Republican 71.83%

R+43.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 54 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 28.172 − 71.828 = -43.656
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-43.656) = 24.656
  4. Absolute miss = |24.656| = 24.656

The poll overstated the Democrat by 24.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47873, race ID 79 (538 database).