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2010 Senate · CO

Ipsos · fieldwork ended 2010-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 405 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.05% · Republican 46.42%

D+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.050 − 46.422 = 1.628
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (1.628) = -4.628
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.628| = 4.628

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32591, race ID 1511 (538 database).