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2014 Senate · KY

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2014-10-31 (4 days before the election) · 1,503 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 50%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.72% · Republican 56.19%

R+15.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 50 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.721 − 56.188 = -15.467
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-15.467) = 7.467
  4. Absolute miss = |7.467| = 7.467

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34407, race ID 15 (538 database).