2014 Senate · SD
Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2014-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 33% · Republican 42%
R+9.0
The certified result
Democrat 29.51% · Republican 50.37%
R+20.9
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 33 − 42 = -9.00
- Actual margin = 29.511 − 50.370 = -20.859
- Signed miss = -9.00 − (-20.859) = 11.860
- Absolute miss = |11.860| = 11.860
The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.9 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34352, race ID 22 (538 database).