I know headline writers need their splashy headlines, but as the media is filled with word of a stunning upset, we should remember the number of times that one candidate or the other was “destroyed” or “finished,” or the election was declared “over.” A poll takes a snapshot of part of the electorate which is…
Here’s your illustration. Liberals loved Nate Silver because he calculated that Barack Obama would win the presidency, among other things. Conservatives didn’t like him so much. Now conservatives are pointing to the poor odds, though 60-40 is a ratio many politicians would covet. I love Nate Silver not because of who he supports but because…
Here. There’s nothing quite so annoying as hearing people spin the polls.
Jonathan Last defends Nate Silver, but it’s really just explaining what “probability” means. HT: Dispatches.
… always consider the sampling error when you report the difference between successive polls. News organizations have been getting some better, in my subjective view, in noting when a result is within the sampling error in a particular poll, but they still report increases or decreases in a lead without that note. If a candidate…
A Kaiser poll (pdf) finds that 22% of respondents believe the health care reform bill has been repealed, and another 26% don’t know. (HT: Dispatches and The Daily Dish) Now I realize that the majority in the poll do realize, correctly, that the health care bill is still law. But consider that even the…
No, President Obama’s approval rating; the poll that I have in the right hand sidebar. It has been there for more than 18 months, and surprisingly enough is still generating interest. The last comment is dated December 19, 2009 and there have been quite a number. You can see the results here. Who does God…
