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2014 Senate · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2014-10-17 (18 days before the election) · 780 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 43%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.26% · Republican 48.82%

R+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 43 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.256 − 48.821 = -1.565
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.565) = 4.564
  4. Absolute miss = |4.564| = 4.564

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33754, race ID 14 (538 database).