About that Poll…
July 24th, 2008 | by Jet Netwal |We have two new Senate polls, both surprising. In Minnesota, Al Franken seems to have caught up with Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), in contrast to many earlier polls showing Coleman safely ahead. Similar, in New Hampshire, Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) appears to have caught up to former governor Jeanne Shaheen (D), when polls for months show her with double-digit leads. When a poll contradicts so much other evidence, don’t take it too seriously, not in Minnesota (sorry Democrats) and not in New Hampshire (sorry Republicans). Remember that 5% of the time the true value falls outside the margin of error. For the standard state polls, the MoE is about 4-5%. So there is a 5% chance that Franken’s real score is outside the range 38% to 48%. Since there are well over 20 polls a week, one or two of these outliers are going to show up every week. It’s normal (sorry statisticians). - Electoral Vote.com
Heh. I love that site.
