2020 Polls Posted the Worst National Error in 40 Years

02 NOV 2020 · National and state pollsters, Media poll sponsors

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■ The claim

Final-stretch 2020 polls, widely reported by news outlets, showed Joe Biden with a large national lead and comfortable margins in key states.

■ What actually happened

Biden won, but by far less than polls indicated. The AAPOR task force found national polls overstated Biden's margin by about 3.9 points, the highest national popular-vote error in 40 years, and state presidential polls overstated it by about 4.3 points, the largest signed error in at least 20 years. The errors ran mostly in the Democrats' favor in Senate and governor races too.

■ The proof

The AAPOR Task Force on 2020 Pre-Election Polling report (July 2021).

■ Original reporting

Mediaite: Wisconsin Democratic chair on ignoring polls; notes final RCP average had Biden near +7 nationallyhttps://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/wisconsin-dem-chair-tells-of-dismissing-absurd-polls-including-one-showing-biden-up-17-in-a-state-he-won-by-0-6

■ Corrections, findings & records

AAPOR Task Force on 2020 Pre-Election Polling report (PDF)https://aapor.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AAPOR-Task-Force-on-2020-Pre-Election-Polling_Report-FNL.pdf
Pew Research: A conversation about U.S. election polling problems in 2020https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/21/a-conversation-about-u-s-election-polling-problems-in-2020/
Phys.org: Pre-election polls in 2020 had the largest errors in 40 yearshttps://phys.org/news/2021-07-pre-election-polls-largest-errors-years.html

■ Wayback Machine copies

Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.

Archive copy: Mediaite: Wisconsin Democratic chair on ignoring polls; notes final RCP average had Biden near +7 nationallyhttps://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/wisconsin-dem-chair-tells-of-dismissing-absurd-polls-including-one-showing-biden-up-17-in-a-state-he-won-by-0-6

Who it helped: DemocratsOverstated Biden's lead.

■ Grade

BAD CALL: A confident prediction or dismissal that turned out wrong. Not a lie, but on the record. How we grade →