Skip to content

2020 Senate · NC

East Carolina University Center for Survey Research · fieldwork ended 2020-10-17 (17 days before the election) · 1,155 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48.6% · Republican 47.2%

D+1.4

The certified result

Democrat 46.94% · Republican 48.69%

R+1.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48.6 − 47.2 = 1.40
  2. Actual margin = 46.940 − 48.687 = -1.747
  3. Signed miss = 1.40 − (-1.747) = 3.147
  4. Absolute miss = |3.147| = 3.147

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71452, race ID 6284 (538 database).