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2020 Senate · SC

Øptimus Analytics · fieldwork ended 2020-11-01 (2 days before the election) · 802 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41.4% · Republican 51.2%

R+9.8

The certified result

Democrat 44.17% · Republican 54.44%

R+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41.4 − 51.2 = -9.80
  2. Actual margin = 44.166 − 54.437 = -10.271
  3. Signed miss = -9.80 − (-10.271) = 0.470
  4. Absolute miss = |0.470| = 0.470

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 72864, race ID 6292 (538 database).