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2016 President · ID

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 612 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 29% · Republican 47%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 27.49% · Republican 59.26%

R+31.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 29 − 47 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 27.492 − 59.261 = -31.769
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-31.769) = 13.769
  4. Absolute miss = |13.769| = 13.769

The poll overstated the Democrat by 13.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48872, race ID 615 (538 database).