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2014 Senate · SD

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2014-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 611 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 32% · Republican 43%

R+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 29.51% · Republican 50.37%

R+20.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 32 − 43 = -11.00
  2. Actual margin = 29.511 − 50.370 = -20.859
  3. Signed miss = -11.00 − (-20.859) = 9.860
  4. Absolute miss = |9.860| = 9.860

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34391, race ID 22 (538 database).