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2016 Senate · WI

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2016-10-31 (8 days before the election) · 891 respondents · IVR/Online Panel · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.81% · Republican 50.17%

R+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.811 − 50.173 = -3.362
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (-3.362) = 8.362
  4. Absolute miss = |8.362| = 8.362

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48330, race ID 71 (538 database).