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2020 Senate · AK

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2020-10-19 (15 days before the election) · 800 respondents · IVR/Text · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 44%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.19% · Republican 53.90%

R+12.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 44 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.194 − 53.897 = -12.703
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-12.703) = 9.703
  4. Absolute miss = |9.703| = 9.703

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71560, race ID 6265 (538 database).