Skip to content

2016 Senate · NC

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 525 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 47%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.37% · Republican 51.06%

R+5.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 47 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.366 − 51.062 = -5.696
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-5.696) = 1.696
  4. Absolute miss = |1.696| = 1.696

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48110, race ID 62 (538 database).