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2010 Senate · MD

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2010-10-24 (9 days before the election) · 750 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 38%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.19% · Republican 35.75%

D+26.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 38 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.193 − 35.753 = 26.440
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (26.440) = -8.440
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.440| = 8.440

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32679, race ID 1525 (538 database).