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2020 Senate · NC

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-13 (21 days before the election) · 721 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 44.6% · Republican 43.5%

D+1.1

The certified result

Democrat 46.94% · Republican 48.69%

R+1.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44.6 − 43.5 = 1.10
  2. Actual margin = 46.940 − 48.687 = -1.747
  3. Signed miss = 1.10 − (-1.747) = 2.847
  4. Absolute miss = |2.847| = 2.847

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71161, race ID 6284 (538 database).