The 2016 Debrief · post-mortem · permanent archive
How did the polling industry do this cycle?
The 2016 industry MAE landed at 6.5pt — graded across 454 historical races with a known outcome — and 454 polls were analyzed across 81 pollsters. Signed bias −4.55pt: pollsters again systematically over-predicted Democrats.
INDUSTRY MAE
6.5pt
vs midterm avg
SIGNED BIAS
−4.55pt
D-leaning
POLLS · POLLSTERS
454
81 firms
RACES SCORED
454
w/ known outcome
Industry mean absolute error · 2012–2016
Per-pollster scorecard · 2016 · sorted by MAE
Signed bias · ±5.7pt
MAE · 0–7.5pt
Biggest-miss races · 2016
| Race | Expected | Actual | Miss | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| us-senate-2016-ok | D+26.00 | D+43.16 | -17.2pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-governor-2016-nd | D+40.00 | D+57.13 | -17.1pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2016-ut | D+27.50 | D+41.09 | -13.6pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2016-ak | D+28.50 | D+15.20 | 13.3pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2016-nd | D+48.50 | D+61.51 | -13.0pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2016-id | D+26.00 | D+38.40 | -12.4pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2016-ar | D+13.00 | D+23.60 | -10.6pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-governor-2016-wv | D+3.50 | R+6.79 | 10.3pt | R-overestimate |