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2014 House · SD-1

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2014-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 56%

R+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 33.47% · Republican 66.53%

R+33.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 56 = -21.00
  2. Actual margin = 33.470 − 66.530 = -33.060
  3. Signed miss = -21.00 − (-33.060) = 12.059
  4. Absolute miss = |12.059| = 12.059

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34352, race ID 5685 (538 database).