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2014 Senate · MT

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 497 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 56%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.07% · Republican 57.79%

R+17.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 56 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.069 − 57.786 = -17.717
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-17.717) = -0.282
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.282| = 0.282

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33833, race ID 5 (538 database).