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2020 President · MT

RMG Research · fieldwork ended 2020-10-17 (17 days before the election) · 800 respondents · IVR/Text

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.55% · Republican 56.92%

R+16.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.550 − 56.919 = -16.369
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-16.369) = 12.369
  4. Absolute miss = |12.369| = 12.369

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71363, race ID 6237 (538 database).