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2020 Senate · VA

Christopher Newport University Wason Center for Civic Leadership · fieldwork ended 2020-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 908 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 37%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.99% · Republican 43.91%

D+12.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 37 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.992 − 43.908 = 12.084
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (12.084) = 7.916
  4. Absolute miss = |7.916| = 7.916

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72078, race ID 6296 (538 database).