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2016 Senate · PA

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 525 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 46%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.34% · Republican 48.77%

R+1.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 46 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.341 − 48.774 = -1.433
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-1.433) = -2.568
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.568| = 2.568

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48681, race ID 86 (538 database).