Skip to content

2010 House · IL-17

We Ask America · fieldwork ended 2010-10-31 (2 days before the election) · 1,103 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43.7% · Republican 51.7%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.96% · Republican 52.58%

R+9.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43.7 − 51.7 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.964 − 52.581 = -9.617
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-9.617) = 1.617
  4. Absolute miss = |1.617| = 1.617

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51764, race ID 4605 (538 database).