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2016 President · MA

Western New England University Polling Institute · fieldwork ended 2016-10-28 (11 days before the election) · 417 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 26%

D+30.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.01% · Republican 32.81%

D+27.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 26 = 30.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.005 − 32.808 = 27.197
  3. Signed miss = 30.00 − (27.197) = 2.803
  4. Absolute miss = |2.803| = 2.803

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48324, race ID 621 (538 database).