2010 Senate · MA
Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2010-01-11 (8 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 49% · Republican 47%
D+2.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.09% · Republican 51.86%
R+4.8
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 49 − 47 = 2.00
- Actual margin = 47.095 − 51.860 = -4.765
- Signed miss = 2.00 − (-4.765) = 6.764
- Absolute miss = |6.764| = 6.764
The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.8 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63721, race ID 1526 (538 database).