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2016 President · IA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2016-10-20 (19 days before the election) · 972 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 40.4% · Republican 37.3%

D+3.1

The certified result

Democrat 41.75% · Republican 51.16%

R+9.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40.4 − 37.3 = 3.10
  2. Actual margin = 41.753 − 51.162 = -9.409
  3. Signed miss = 3.10 − (-9.409) = 12.510
  4. Absolute miss = |12.510| = 12.510

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48734, race ID 614 (538 database).