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2020 Senate · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2020-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 937 respondents · IVR/Text · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 44%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.94% · Republican 48.69%

R+1.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 44 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.940 − 48.687 = -1.747
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.747) = 4.747
  4. Absolute miss = |4.747| = 4.747

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.7 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72057, race ID 6284 (538 database).