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2020 President · national

Rasmussen Reports · fieldwork ended 2020-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 1,500 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 48%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.07% · Republican 46.67%

D+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 48 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.068 − 46.672 = 4.396
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (4.396) = -5.396
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.396| = 5.396

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72086, race ID 6210 (538 database).