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2016 Senate · IA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-10-28 (11 days before the election) · 984 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 56%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 35.66% · Republican 60.09%

R+24.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 56 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 35.655 − 60.090 = -24.435
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-24.435) = 9.435
  4. Absolute miss = |9.435| = 9.435

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 47898, race ID 92 (538 database).