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2014 Senate · SD

Monmouth University Polling Institute · fieldwork ended 2014-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 429 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 31% · Republican 45%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 29.51% · Republican 50.37%

R+20.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 31 − 45 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 29.511 − 50.370 = -20.859
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-20.859) = 6.860
  4. Absolute miss = |6.860| = 6.860

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34244, race ID 22 (538 database).