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2016 House · MN-8

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2016-10-18 (21 days before the election) · 595 respondents · IVR/Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 45%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.17% · Republican 49.61%

D+0.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 45 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.171 − 49.609 = 0.562
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (0.562) = -4.563
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.563| = 4.563

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 49217, race ID 5990 (538 database).