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2010 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 590 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 53%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.05% · Republican 54.81%

R+11.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 53 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.047 − 54.812 = -11.765
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-11.765) = -3.234
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.234| = 3.234

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32678, race ID 1532 (538 database).