Skip to content

2016 President · national

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2016-10-20 (19 days before the election) · 84,292 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42.9% · Republican 39%

D+3.9

The certified result

Democrat 48.00% · Republican 45.81%

D+2.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42.9 − 39 = 3.90
  2. Actual margin = 47.997 − 45.815 = 2.182
  3. Signed miss = 3.90 − (2.182) = 1.719
  4. Absolute miss = |1.719| = 1.719

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48718, race ID 94 (538 database).