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2014 Senate · IA

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2014-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 1,129 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 45%

even

The certified result

Democrat 43.76% · Republican 52.10%

R+8.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 45 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.761 − 52.100 = -8.339
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (-8.339) = 8.339
  4. Absolute miss = |8.339| = 8.339

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.3 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34388, race ID 26 (538 database).