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2016 President · MI

Mitchell Research & Communications · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 737 respondents · IVR/Text

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 43%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.22% · Republican 47.44%

R+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 43 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.216 − 47.439 = -0.223
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (-0.223) = 7.223
  4. Absolute miss = |7.223| = 7.223

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48010, race ID 624 (538 database).