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2014 Senate · SC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 1,566 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 28% · Republican 43%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.83% · Republican 54.27%

R+17.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 28 − 43 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.831 − 54.266 = -17.435
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-17.435) = 2.436
  4. Absolute miss = |2.436| = 2.436

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33798, race ID 11 (538 database).