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2016 Senate · AL

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,131 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 57%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 35.87% · Republican 63.96%

R+28.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 57 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 35.867 − 63.959 = -28.092
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-28.092) = 9.092
  4. Absolute miss = |9.092| = 9.092

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48860, race ID 68 (538 database).