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2018 Senate · WI

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

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 39%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.36% · Republican 44.53%

D+10.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 39 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.357 − 44.532 = 10.825
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (10.825) = 0.175
  4. Absolute miss = |0.175| = 0.175

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56805, race ID 127 (538 database).