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2014 Senate · NC

Elon University · fieldwork ended 2014-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 687 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44.7% · Republican 40.7%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.26% · Republican 48.82%

R+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44.7 − 40.7 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.256 − 48.821 = -1.565
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (-1.565) = 5.564
  4. Absolute miss = |5.564| = 5.564

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34425, race ID 14 (538 database).