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2020 Senate · VA

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2020-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 802 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 39%

D+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.99% · Republican 43.91%

D+12.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 39 = 16.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.992 − 43.908 = 12.084
  3. Signed miss = 16.00 − (12.084) = 3.916
  4. Absolute miss = |3.916| = 3.916

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72402, race ID 6296 (538 database).