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2014 Senate · NC

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2014-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 982 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 45%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.26% · Republican 48.82%

R+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 45 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.256 − 48.821 = -1.565
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-1.565) = 2.564
  4. Absolute miss = |2.564| = 2.564

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34406, race ID 14 (538 database).