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2016 President · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2016-11-03 (5 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 46%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.75% · Republican 51.16%

R+9.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 46 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.753 − 51.162 = -9.409
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-9.409) = 2.410
  4. Absolute miss = |2.410| = 2.410

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48470, race ID 614 (538 database).