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2020 President · national

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2020-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49.5% · Republican 43%

D+6.5

The certified result

Democrat 51.07% · Republican 46.67%

D+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49.5 − 43 = 6.50
  2. Actual margin = 51.068 − 46.672 = 4.396
  3. Signed miss = 6.50 − (4.396) = 2.104
  4. Absolute miss = |2.104| = 2.104

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72176, race ID 6210 (538 database).