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2014 Senate · GA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2014-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 611 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.21% · Republican 52.89%

R+7.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.206 − 52.889 = -7.683
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-7.683) = 4.683
  4. Absolute miss = |4.683| = 4.683

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34060, race ID 17 (538 database).