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2014 Senate · KY

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 1,502 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 45%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.72% · Republican 56.19%

R+15.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 45 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.721 − 56.188 = -15.467
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-15.467) = 9.467
  4. Absolute miss = |9.467| = 9.467

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33807, race ID 15 (538 database).