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2020 President · GA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-18 (16 days before the election) · 506 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48.4%

R+1.4

The certified result

Democrat 49.47% · Republican 49.24%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48.4 = -1.40
  2. Actual margin = 49.473 − 49.237 = 0.236
  3. Signed miss = -1.40 − (0.236) = -1.636
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.636| = 1.636

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71435, race ID 6221 (538 database).