Skip to content

2018 Senate · MT

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 2018-11-03 (3 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49.9% · Republican 42.1%

D+7.8

The certified result

Democrat 50.33% · Republican 46.78%

D+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49.9 − 42.1 = 7.80
  2. Actual margin = 50.334 − 46.782 = 3.552
  3. Signed miss = 7.80 − (3.552) = 4.249
  4. Absolute miss = |4.249| = 4.249

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56834, race ID 110 (538 database).