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2020 President · M1

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2020-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 498 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 40%

D+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.12% · Republican 37.02%

D+23.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 40 = 19.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.115 − 37.021 = 23.094
  3. Signed miss = 19.00 − (23.094) = -4.094
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.094| = 4.094

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72178, race ID 8422 (538 database).