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2018 House · PA-8

The New York Times/Siena College · fieldwork ended 2018-10-18 (19 days before the election) · 506 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 52.38% · Republican 39.78%

D+12.6

The certified result

Democrat 54.64% · Republican 45.36%

D+9.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52.38 − 39.78 = 12.60
  2. Actual margin = 54.642 − 45.358 = 9.284
  3. Signed miss = 12.60 − (9.284) = 3.316
  4. Absolute miss = |3.316| = 3.316

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 56308, race ID 498 (538 database).