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2010 Senate · AK

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2010-10-13 (20 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 27% · Republican 35%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 23.50% · Republican 35.55%

R+12.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 27 − 35 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 23.501 − 35.553 = -12.052
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-12.052) = 4.052
  4. Absolute miss = |4.052| = 4.052

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32554, race ID 1507 (538 database).