2010 Senate · MA
University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2010-01-04 (15 days before the election) · 554 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 53% · Republican 36%
D+17.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.09% · Republican 51.86%
R+4.8
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 53 − 36 = 17.00
- Actual margin = 47.095 − 51.860 = -4.765
- Signed miss = 17.00 − (-4.765) = 21.764
- Absolute miss = |21.764| = 21.764
The poll overstated the Democrat by 21.8 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 53048, race ID 1526 (538 database).