Skip to content

2018 Senate · PA

Research Co. · fieldwork ended 2018-11-02 (4 days before the election) · 450 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 39%

D+17.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.74% · Republican 42.62%

D+13.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 39 = 17.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.744 − 42.617 = 13.127
  3. Signed miss = 17.00 − (13.127) = 3.873
  4. Absolute miss = |3.873| = 3.873

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56741, race ID 118 (538 database).