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2020 Senate · GA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2020-12-15 (21 days before the election) · 605 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 51%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.61% · Republican 49.39%

D+1.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 51 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.613 − 49.387 = 1.226
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (1.226) = -3.225
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.225| = 3.225

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73801, race ID 8737 (538 database).