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2014 Senate · KY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2014-10-17 (18 days before the election) · 655 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 44%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.72% · Republican 56.19%

R+15.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 44 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.721 − 56.188 = -15.467
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-15.467) = 14.467
  4. Absolute miss = |14.467| = 14.467

The poll overstated the Democrat by 14.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33775, race ID 15 (538 database).