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2010 Senate · WV

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2010-10-19 (14 days before the election) · 750 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 50%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.47% · Republican 43.40%

D+10.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 50 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.469 − 43.403 = 10.066
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (10.066) = -17.066
  4. Absolute miss = |-17.066| = 17.066

The poll overstated the Republican by 17.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32608, race ID 1543 (538 database).