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2010 Governor · MA

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2010-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 519 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 39%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.42% · Republican 42.01%

D+6.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 39 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.422 − 42.005 = 6.417
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (6.417) = -2.418
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.418| = 2.418

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 53025, race ID 1294 (538 database).