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2018 House · IA-4

The New York Times/Siena College · fieldwork ended 2018-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 423 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42.45% · Republican 47.22%

R+4.8

The certified result

Democrat 47.04% · Republican 50.37%

R+3.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42.45 − 47.22 = -4.77
  2. Actual margin = 47.037 − 50.368 = -3.331
  3. Signed miss = -4.77 − (-3.331) = -1.438
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.438| = 1.438

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56709, race ID 300 (538 database).