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2020 President · national

Morning Consult · fieldwork ended 2020-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 12,000 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 43%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.07% · Republican 46.67%

D+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 43 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.068 − 46.672 = 4.396
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (4.396) = 4.604
  4. Absolute miss = |4.604| = 4.604

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71961, race ID 6210 (538 database).