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2016 Senate · MO

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 1,083 respondents · IVR/Online Panel · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 46%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.39% · Republican 49.18%

R+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.392 − 49.184 = -2.792
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-2.792) = 0.792
  4. Absolute miss = |0.792| = 0.792

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48119, race ID 70 (538 database).