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2014 Senate · VA

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2014-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 459 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 39%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.15% · Republican 48.34%

D+0.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 39 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.150 − 48.338 = 0.812
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (0.812) = 9.188
  4. Absolute miss = |9.188| = 9.188

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 34409, race ID 16 (538 database).