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2014 Senate · IA

Øptimus Analytics · fieldwork ended 2014-10-16 (19 days before the election) · 2,455 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44.4% · Republican 45%

R+0.6

The certified result

Democrat 43.76% · Republican 52.10%

R+8.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44.4 − 45 = -0.60
  2. Actual margin = 43.761 − 52.100 = -8.339
  3. Signed miss = -0.60 − (-8.339) = 7.739
  4. Absolute miss = |7.739| = 7.739

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 58866, race ID 26 (538 database).