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2020 President · IA

InsiderAdvantage · fieldwork ended 2020-10-18 (16 days before the election) · 400 respondents · IVR/Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45.1% · Republican 44.6%

D+0.5

The certified result

Democrat 44.89% · Republican 53.09%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45.1 − 44.6 = 0.50
  2. Actual margin = 44.892 − 53.089 = -8.197
  3. Signed miss = 0.50 − (-8.197) = 8.698
  4. Absolute miss = |8.698| = 8.698

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71465, race ID 6223 (538 database).