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2016 Senate · SC

SurveyMonkey · fieldwork ended 2016-11-04 (4 days before the election) · 1,698 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 59%

R+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 34.37% · Republican 60.57%

R+26.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 59 = -21.00
  2. Actual margin = 34.370 − 60.569 = -26.199
  3. Signed miss = -21.00 − (-26.199) = 5.200
  4. Absolute miss = |5.200| = 5.200

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 48900, race ID 66 (538 database).