Skip to content

2014 Senate · VA

Christopher Newport University Wason Center for Civic Leadership · fieldwork ended 2014-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 634 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 44%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.15% · Republican 48.34%

D+0.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 44 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.150 − 48.338 = 0.812
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (0.812) = 6.188
  4. Absolute miss = |6.188| = 6.188

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34401, race ID 16 (538 database).