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2014 Senate · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2014-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48.8% · Republican 33.8%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.87% · Republican 37.98%

D+23.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48.8 − 33.8 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.869 − 37.984 = 23.885
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (23.885) = -8.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.885| = 8.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34330, race ID 31 (538 database).