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2014 Senate · MA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 2,218 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 32%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.87% · Republican 37.98%

D+23.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 32 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.869 − 37.984 = 23.885
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (23.885) = -1.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.885| = 1.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33831, race ID 31 (538 database).