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2010 Senate · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 594 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 40%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.18% · Republican 42.17%

D+10.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 40 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.184 − 42.173 = 10.011
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (10.011) = -5.011
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.011| = 5.011

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32686, race ID 1510 (538 database).