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2020 President · IA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 435 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 48.1% · Republican 48%

D+0.1

The certified result

Democrat 44.89% · Republican 53.09%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48.1 − 48 = 0.10
  2. Actual margin = 44.892 − 53.089 = -8.197
  3. Signed miss = 0.10 − (-8.197) = 8.298
  4. Absolute miss = |8.298| = 8.298

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71562, race ID 6223 (538 database).