Skip to content

2010 Senate · PA

Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion · fieldwork ended 2010-10-22 (11 days before the election) · 445 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 46%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.99% · Republican 51.01%

R+2.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 46 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.992 − 51.008 = -2.016
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-2.016) = -0.983
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.983| = 0.983

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32655, race ID 1537 (538 database).