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2014 Senate · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2014-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 708 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 51%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.76% · Republican 52.10%

R+8.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 51 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.761 − 52.100 = -8.339
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-8.339) = 1.339
  4. Absolute miss = |1.339| = 1.339

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34392, race ID 26 (538 database).