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2020 Senate · MI

Trafalgar Group · fieldwork ended 2020-10-17 (17 days before the election) · 1,034 respondents · IVR/Live Phone/Text/Online Panel/Email · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 47.5% · Republican 49.7%

R+2.2

The certified result

Democrat 49.90% · Republican 48.22%

D+1.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.5 − 49.7 = -2.20
  2. Actual margin = 49.903 − 48.218 = 1.685
  3. Signed miss = -2.20 − (1.685) = -3.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.885| = 3.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 71649, race ID 6280 (538 database).