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2020 Senate · ME

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-30 (4 days before the election) · 611 respondents · IVR/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 47.6% · Republican 45.8%

D+1.8

The certified result

Democrat 42.39% · Republican 50.98%

R+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.6 − 45.8 = 1.80
  2. Actual margin = 42.386 − 50.983 = -8.597
  3. Signed miss = 1.80 − (-8.597) = 10.397
  4. Absolute miss = |10.397| = 10.397

The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72511, race ID 6279 (538 database).