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2010 Senate · WA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2010-10-30 (3 days before the election) · 2,055 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 50%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.37% · Republican 47.63%

D+4.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 50 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.365 − 47.635 = 4.730
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (4.730) = -6.730
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.730| = 6.730

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32797, race ID 1542 (538 database).