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2014 Senate · AR

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 1,546 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 47%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.43% · Republican 56.50%

R+17.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 47 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.430 − 56.497 = -17.067
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-17.067) = 12.067
  4. Absolute miss = |12.067| = 12.067

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 33811, race ID 32 (538 database).