Skip to content

2020 President · PA

Wick · fieldwork ended 2020-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 1,000 respondents · IVR/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 46.9% · Republican 49%

R+2.1

The certified result

Democrat 50.01% · Republican 48.84%

D+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.9 − 49 = -2.10
  2. Actual margin = 50.008 − 48.844 = 1.164
  3. Signed miss = -2.10 − (1.164) = -3.265
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.265| = 3.265

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72799, race ID 6249 (538 database).