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2020 Senate · ME

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2020-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 1,007 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 49%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.39% · Republican 50.98%

R+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 49 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.386 − 50.983 = -8.597
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-8.597) = 10.597
  4. Absolute miss = |10.597| = 10.597

The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72179, race ID 6279 (538 database).