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2016 President · MA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,378 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 30%

D+26.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.01% · Republican 32.81%

D+27.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 30 = 26.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.005 − 32.808 = 27.197
  3. Signed miss = 26.00 − (27.197) = -1.197
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.197| = 1.197

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48881, race ID 621 (538 database).