Skip to content

2014 Senate · IA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2014-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 1,112 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 42.9% · Republican 41.9%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.76% · Republican 52.10%

R+8.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42.9 − 41.9 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.761 − 52.100 = -8.339
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-8.339) = 9.339
  4. Absolute miss = |9.339| = 9.339

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34337, race ID 26 (538 database).