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2014 House · IL-11

We Ask America · fieldwork ended 2014-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 442 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 40%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.46% · Republican 46.54%

D+6.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 40 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.462 − 46.538 = 6.924
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (6.924) = 5.076
  4. Absolute miss = |5.076| = 5.076

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 36080, race ID 5474 (538 database).