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2010 Senate · PA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2010-10-27 (6 days before the election) · 779 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 50%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.99% · Republican 51.01%

R+2.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 50 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.992 − 51.008 = -2.016
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-2.016) = -3.983
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.983| = 3.983

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32731, race ID 1537 (538 database).