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2014 Senate · MA

Western New England University Polling Institute · fieldwork ended 2014-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 430 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 34%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 61.87% · Republican 37.98%

D+23.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 34 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 61.869 − 37.984 = 23.885
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (23.885) = -3.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.885| = 3.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34356, race ID 31 (538 database).