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2020 President · IA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-10-30 (4 days before the election) · 604 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 47.4% · Republican 48.6%

R+1.2

The certified result

Democrat 44.89% · Republican 53.09%

R+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.4 − 48.6 = -1.20
  2. Actual margin = 44.892 − 53.089 = -8.197
  3. Signed miss = -1.20 − (-8.197) = 6.998
  4. Absolute miss = |6.998| = 6.998

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72489, race ID 6223 (538 database).