Skip to content

2020 President · PA

RMG Research · fieldwork ended 2020-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · IVR/Text-to-Web/Online Ad

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 45%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.01% · Republican 48.84%

D+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 45 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.008 − 48.844 = 1.164
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (1.164) = 4.835
  4. Absolute miss = |4.835| = 4.835

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72169, race ID 6249 (538 database).