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2014 House · SD-1

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

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 55%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 33.47% · Republican 66.53%

R+33.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 55 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 33.470 − 66.530 = -33.060
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-33.060) = 17.059
  4. Absolute miss = |17.059| = 17.059

The poll overstated the Democrat by 17.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34391, race ID 5685 (538 database).