Skip to content

2020 President · OH

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2020-10-19 (15 days before the election) · 1,018 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.24% · Republican 53.27%

R+8.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.239 − 53.271 = -8.032
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-8.032) = 5.032
  4. Absolute miss = |5.032| = 5.032

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71626, race ID 6246 (538 database).