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2020 President · NC

The New York Times/Siena College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 1,034 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.59% · Republican 49.93%

R+1.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.586 − 49.934 = -1.348
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.348) = 4.348
  4. Absolute miss = |4.348| = 4.348

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72215, race ID 6238 (538 database).