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2020 President · MI

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-30 (4 days before the election) · 700 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 45.5%

D+6.5

The certified result

Democrat 50.62% · Republican 47.84%

D+2.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 45.5 = 6.50
  2. Actual margin = 50.621 − 47.837 = 2.784
  3. Signed miss = 6.50 − (2.784) = 3.716
  4. Absolute miss = |3.716| = 3.716

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72487, race ID 6233 (538 database).