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2010 Governor · PA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2010-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 718 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 48%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.51% · Republican 54.49%

R+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.511 − 54.489 = -8.978
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-8.978) = 6.977
  4. Absolute miss = |6.977| = 6.977

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32585, race ID 1301 (538 database).