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2018 Senate · IN

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2018-10-29 (8 days before the election) · 722 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 38%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.84% · Republican 50.73%

R+5.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 38 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.842 − 50.732 = -5.890
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (-5.890) = 12.890
  4. Absolute miss = |12.890| = 12.890

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56618, race ID 102 (538 database).