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2020 President · AL

Data for Progress · fieldwork ended 2020-10-29 (5 days before the election) · 1,045 respondents · Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 58%

R+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.57% · Republican 62.03%

R+25.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 58 = -20.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.570 − 62.032 = -25.462
  3. Signed miss = -20.00 − (-25.462) = 5.462
  4. Absolute miss = |5.462| = 5.462

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72591, race ID 6212 (538 database).