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2010 House · MN-8

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-27 (6 days before the election) · 665 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 46%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.59% · Republican 48.18%

R+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 46 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.590 − 48.177 = -1.587
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-1.587) = 2.588
  4. Absolute miss = |2.588| = 2.588

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 51881, race ID 4681 (538 database).