knoxsouthy wrote:
According to your own polls Obama and Mcain are neck and neck.
No, they're not. The only people saying so are either lying or don't understand polling.
The National Council on Public Polls wrote:
Certainly, if the gap between the two candidates is less than the sampling error margin, you should not say that one candidate is ahead of the other. You can say the race is "close," the race is "roughly even," or there is "little difference between the candidates." But it should not be called a "dead heat" unless the candidates are tied with the same percentages. And it certainly is not a “statistical tie†unless both candidates have the same exact percentages.
And just as certainly, when the gap between the two candidates is equal to or more than twice the error margin – 6 percentage points in our example – and if there are only two candidates and no undecided voters, you can say with confidence that the poll says Candidate A is clearly leading Candidate B.
When the gap between the two candidates is more than the error margin but less than twice the error margin, you should say that Candidate A "is ahead," "has an advantage" or "holds an edge." The story should mention that there is a small possibility that Candidate B is ahead of Candidate A.
Both Rasmussen and Gallup have Obama outside of the MOE for their polls. In fact, today's Gallup lead is 3x the MOE of 2pts.
The same organization wrote:
It has become common practice in news stories to call small differences between candidates "statistical dead heats." This happens when a candidate's lead is less than the error due to sampling. We want to say right up front that it is encouraging to see reporters aware of sampling error. We discuss it in a separate report. This time we want to discuss candidate leads.
"Statistical dead heat" just does not do justice to what is known. In a poll, a lead is a real lead if the difference between two candidates is bigger than the error due to rounding. We said bigger than "rounding," not sampling error. Simply put, any difference greater than one percentage point is a lead. However, all leads are not equal. A big lead is still more certain than a small lead. There are leads that we will bet the ranch on and leads that are only worth an even money bet. Personally, we would be happy to take any leading candidate over the trailing candidate in an even money bet. The leading candidate's chances of winning are better than the other candidate's. Maybe not much better if the lead is small, but still it is better.
A small lead is any difference between candidates that is smaller than the sampling error on the difference. A better choice than "statistical dead heat" would be: "Candidate A is leading at this time, but victory over Candidate B is less than certain." Or, "Candidate A's small (2 point) lead does not assure him/her of victory on Election Day."The points to be made are (1) candidate A has a lead; (2) it is a small lead; (3) the outcome is not assured; (4) the results apply to the days of the poll, not Election Day.
