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2020 Governor · MT

Montana State University Billings · fieldwork ended 2020-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 546 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 45%

even

The certified result

Democrat 41.56% · Republican 54.43%

R+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 45 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.562 − 54.433 = -12.871
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (-12.871) = 12.871
  4. Absolute miss = |12.871| = 12.871

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.9 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72162, race ID 7821 (538 database).