President Obama now leads by just one point in the latest PPP Florida poll (48%-47%)—down from a four-point lead (50%-46%) in an Aug. 22-26 CNN poll.Look, I'm no pollster, but isn't comparing results across different polling firms and calling it a trend one of the cardinal sins of polling interpretation? And, given those polls' margins of error, aren't those two results statistically indistinguishable from one another?
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Desperately seeking trends
Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell's latest piece of advice to Obama suggests that his campaign is in trouble and needs a sudden change. As evidence of Obama's recent troubles, they cherry-pick from a number of polls, noting that Obama is trailing Romney badly in the "battleground" state of Missouri (which isn't actually a battleground this year) and that Romney has closed the gap with Obama nationwide since May. Then they do this:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)