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2020 Senate · 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 46.36% · Republican 50.44%

R+4.1

The certified result

Democrat 45.15% · Republican 51.74%

R+6.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.36 − 50.44 = -4.08
  2. Actual margin = 45.152 − 51.740 = -6.588
  3. Signed miss = -4.08 − (-6.588) = 2.508
  4. Absolute miss = |2.508| = 2.508

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71562, race ID 6272 (538 database).