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2014 House · MA-6

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2014-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 400 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 42%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.97% · Republican 41.14%

D+13.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 42 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.970 − 41.139 = 13.831
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (13.831) = -15.830
  4. Absolute miss = |-15.830| = 15.830

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34343, race ID 5528 (538 database).