Skip to content

2014 Senate · VA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 1,605 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 39%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.15% · Republican 48.34%

D+0.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 39 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.150 − 48.338 = 0.812
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (0.812) = 9.188
  4. Absolute miss = |9.188| = 9.188

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33765, race ID 16 (538 database).