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2006 Senate · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2006-10-22 (16 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 60% · Republican 26%

D+34.0

The certified result

Democrat 66.88% · Republican 29.48%

D+37.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 60 − 26 = 34.00
  2. Actual margin = 66.883 − 29.482 = 37.401
  3. Signed miss = 34.00 − (37.401) = -3.401
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.401| = 3.401

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24801, race ID 1590 (538 database).