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2014 Senate · MA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2014-10-31 (4 days before the election) · 887 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 38%

D+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.87% · Republican 37.98%

D+23.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 38 = 14.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.869 − 37.984 = 23.885
  3. Signed miss = 14.00 − (23.885) = -9.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.885| = 9.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34332, race ID 31 (538 database).