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2020 Senate · IL

Research Co. · fieldwork ended 2020-10-31 (3 days before the election) · 450 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 30%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.93% · Republican 38.87%

D+16.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 30 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.934 − 38.866 = 16.068
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (16.068) = 5.932
  4. Absolute miss = |5.932| = 5.932

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72623, race ID 6274 (538 database).