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2016 Senate · LA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2016-11-29 (11 days before the election) · 400 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 33% · Republican 51%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.34% · Republican 60.66%

R+21.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 33 − 51 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.345 − 60.655 = -21.310
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-21.310) = 3.309
  4. Absolute miss = |3.309| = 3.309

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 52343, race ID 1469 (538 database).