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2010 Senate · PA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2010-10-12 (21 days before the election) · 750 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 49%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.99% · Republican 51.01%

R+2.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 49 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.992 − 51.008 = -2.016
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-2.016) = -7.983
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.983| = 7.983

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32550, race ID 1537 (538 database).