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2010 Senate · MA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2010-01-08 (11 days before the election) · 774 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.09% · Republican 51.86%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.095 − 51.860 = -4.765
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-4.765) = 3.764
  4. Absolute miss = |3.764| = 3.764

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 53047, race ID 1526 (538 database).