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2014 Senate · ME

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2014-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 667 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 30% · Republican 65%

R+35.0

The certified result

Democrat 31.50% · Republican 68.46%

R+37.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 30 − 65 = -35.00
  2. Actual margin = 31.498 − 68.458 = -36.960
  3. Signed miss = -35.00 − (-36.960) = 1.960
  4. Absolute miss = |1.960| = 1.960

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33766, race ID 9 (538 database).