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2020 President · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2020-10-28 (6 days before the election) · 814 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 48%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.89% · Republican 53.09%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 48 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.892 − 53.089 = -8.197
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-8.197) = 1.198
  4. Absolute miss = |1.198| = 1.198

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72420, race ID 6223 (538 database).