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2016 President · PA

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 2,845 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 43%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.47% · Republican 48.18%

R+0.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 43 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.465 − 48.183 = -0.718
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-0.718) = 3.718
  4. Absolute miss = |3.718| = 3.718

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48898, race ID 640 (538 database).