Do political election polls insult your sense of uniqueness?
(Like I mean, they can interview about 1500 people on the telephone, and then predict how 2 million people will vote in an election. —)
***They just did precisely that for the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary. —- The CNN polls predicted Clinton would win the Pennsylvania primary by 9%. Currently with 75% (1.6 million votes cast) Clinton is winning by 9%.
political polls insult just about everything!
April 7th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Yes.
But the exit polls I saw reported Clinton winning by only 6%. Maybe they focused on Philly. They’re always wrong anyway.
Go Hillary!
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April 8th, 2010 at 12:41 am
Luciana – exit polls are notoriously unreliable.
Random telephone polls on the other hand are generally pretty accurate.
But as for the 6% vs 9% this is still within a pretty good margin for error.
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April 8th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Statistics are an art… have you taken any stats classes in college? Its a science. Would your argument be to just not take them because they do predict thing successfully?
What I have a problem with is cnn’s and fox news exit polls saying how blacks voted, how working class people voted, how young people voted, how elderly people votes. While true by making them such a prominent issue they contribute to a social divide.
"MOST YOUNG PEOPLE VOTE OBAMA"… therefore most obama supporters must be naive.
"MOST ELDERLY PEOPLE VOTE CLINTON"… therefore most of them must be senile or out of touch.
As true as those stats may be they don’t need to be celebrated on CNN.
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April 8th, 2010 at 1:38 am
sorry to burst your bubble, but we’re not really that unique. and the sample size is a matter of statistics. probability theory provides a tool for determining how many cases need to be sampled in order to represent the larger universe. and they can get it within a few percentage points. isn’t science grand?
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April 8th, 2010 at 1:44 am
Political polls insult just about everything!
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