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2014 Senate · MT

Gravis Marketing · fieldwork ended 2014-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 604 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 53%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.07% · Republican 57.79%

R+17.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 53 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.069 − 57.786 = -17.717
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-17.717) = 3.718
  4. Absolute miss = |3.718| = 3.718

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34429, race ID 5 (538 database).