Skip to content

2010 Governor · PA

Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion · fieldwork ended 2010-10-18 (15 days before the election) · 403 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 47%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.51% · Republican 54.49%

R+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 47 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.511 − 54.489 = -8.978
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-8.978) = 1.977
  4. Absolute miss = |1.977| = 1.977

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32607, race ID 1301 (538 database).