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2020 President · national

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 2020-10-14 (20 days before the election) · 1,897 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 42%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.07% · Republican 46.67%

D+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 42 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.068 − 46.672 = 4.396
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (4.396) = -0.396
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.396| = 0.396

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71557, race ID 6210 (538 database).