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2016 Senate · GA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2016-10-30 (9 days before the election) · 650 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 48%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.03% · Republican 54.78%

R+13.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 48 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.033 − 54.784 = -13.751
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-13.751) = 5.751
  4. Absolute miss = |5.751| = 5.751

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48080, race ID 88 (538 database).