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2010 Senate · MA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2010-01-16 (3 days before the election) · 1,231 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 51%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.09% · Republican 51.86%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 51 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.095 − 51.860 = -4.765
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-4.765) = -0.236
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.236| = 0.236

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63725, race ID 1526 (538 database).