The Political Environment: The Hermetically-Sealed Ron Johnson Is In A Statistical Dead Heat

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Hermetically-Sealed Ron Johnson Is In A Statistical Dead Heat

So says the St. Norbert's poll.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: Ever since my Statistics classes back in my time at University, it has always amused me that people do not understand what "margin of error" actually means.

In particular by the brain dead media.

A 5% margin of error refers to the confidence level of the survey results as a whole. As in there is a 95% chance the survey results are an accurate representation of the entire population.

Even if it meant what you thought, comparing the difference between the two results versus the margin of error % figure is meaningless.

At best if 5% actually meant that each of the 2 results are off by up to 5%, the possible range would be that Johnson is ahead by up to 12 points (54 to 42) or conversely Feingold is ahead by up to 8 (52 to 44).

You can not deduce anything from that.; October 19, 2010 at 4:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Same poll has Walker up by 9%, so do you conceed that Barrett is going to lose?; October 19, 2010 at 4:43 PM
James Rowen said...: To Anon. #2: I'm not conceding anything.; October 19, 2010 at 5:21 PM
Anonymous said...: In addition to not conceding James, you are also not responding to anything of substance.

Guess it is easier to just ignore reality.; October 19, 2010 at 6:56 PM
Anon Jim said...: So lets get this straight Rowen, the poll that supposedly shows Russ in a tie is significant.

But the same poll that shows Barrett getting beat badly is not.

One does have to admire your ability to rationalize and parse reality.; October 20, 2010 at 7:37 AM