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2016 Senate · IA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,781 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 57%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 35.66% · Republican 60.09%

R+24.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 57 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 35.655 − 60.090 = -24.435
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-24.435) = 6.435
  4. Absolute miss = |6.435| = 6.435

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48875, race ID 92 (538 database).