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2014 House · MA-6

Øptimus Analytics · fieldwork ended 2014-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 2,994 respondents · IVR · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 47.7% · Republican 46.4%

D+1.3

The certified result

Democrat 54.97% · Republican 41.14%

D+13.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.7 − 46.4 = 1.30
  2. Actual margin = 54.970 − 41.139 = 13.831
  3. Signed miss = 1.30 − (13.831) = -12.530
  4. Absolute miss = |-12.530| = 12.530

The poll overstated the Republican by 12.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 36083, race ID 5528 (538 database).