Skip to content

2018 Senate · PA

Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion · fieldwork ended 2018-10-30 (7 days before the election) · 421 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 40%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.74% · Republican 42.62%

D+13.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 40 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.744 − 42.617 = 13.127
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (13.127) = 0.873
  4. Absolute miss = |0.873| = 0.873

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56682, race ID 118 (538 database).