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2016 President · MS

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 719 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 50%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.12% · Republican 57.94%

R+17.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 50 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.115 − 57.941 = -17.826
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-17.826) = 9.826
  4. Absolute miss = |9.826| = 9.826

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48884, race ID 627 (538 database).