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2020 Governor · 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 51% · Republican 42%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.52% · Republican 47.01%

D+4.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 42 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.516 − 47.005 = 4.511
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (4.511) = 4.490
  4. Absolute miss = |4.490| = 4.490

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72215, race ID 7824 (538 database).