DRAFT POST -- released early for reasons of timeliness
Democrats who were enamored of the glorious statistical finery of Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium may be scratching their heads over numbers which once showed a "93%" [?] probability of Democratic control of the Senate if the election were held "today" to a mere 30% plus or minus 15% for the election held in November. What went wrong?
Sam Wang is perfectly capable of defending himself and this post is not meant as an attack on him. However, I do want to underscore some things I have said over the past month. The polls can indeed be wrong, and have been many times in the past.
What, then, is the place of polls in a political campaign? Are they over-rated? Most assuredly they can be over-rated, and often are. How, then, to use them correctly? Again, Wang does a good job of describing the correct way to use the polls. One must dig a bit to get at this information but it is available on his Princeton Election Consortium site.
As Wang himself says, now is not a time for Democrats to wring hands or moan but to get busy. I admit I sometimes moan at the wash of aristocratic money in this campaign. We this kind of money, the Republicans should have locked up this election weeks ago. The fact that the polls seem to indicate them merely leading is a small miracle.
But as for hand-wringing, that part has escaped me. That is to say, I am still willing to follow the situation and work through efforts such as this blog to call attention to the abysmal record of the Republicans who have had control, the Elephants in the House. What have they done for the American people? Can the average person mention one single thing this group has done, actually done to make life better, easier, or more fulfilling for him or her?
This has truly been a do-nothing House. And the idea of now having a do-nothing Senate is unthinkable. And here the media with their ludicrous narratives are very much to blame. That will be the subject of a coming post.
For more on recent polling see:
Are the Polls Wrong?
Democrats who were enamored of the glorious statistical finery of Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium may be scratching their heads over numbers which once showed a "93%" [?] probability of Democratic control of the Senate if the election were held "today" to a mere 30% plus or minus 15% for the election held in November. What went wrong?
Sam Wang is perfectly capable of defending himself and this post is not meant as an attack on him. However, I do want to underscore some things I have said over the past month. The polls can indeed be wrong, and have been many times in the past.
What, then, is the place of polls in a political campaign? Are they over-rated? Most assuredly they can be over-rated, and often are. How, then, to use them correctly? Again, Wang does a good job of describing the correct way to use the polls. One must dig a bit to get at this information but it is available on his Princeton Election Consortium site.
As Wang himself says, now is not a time for Democrats to wring hands or moan but to get busy. I admit I sometimes moan at the wash of aristocratic money in this campaign. We this kind of money, the Republicans should have locked up this election weeks ago. The fact that the polls seem to indicate them merely leading is a small miracle.
But as for hand-wringing, that part has escaped me. That is to say, I am still willing to follow the situation and work through efforts such as this blog to call attention to the abysmal record of the Republicans who have had control, the Elephants in the House. What have they done for the American people? Can the average person mention one single thing this group has done, actually done to make life better, easier, or more fulfilling for him or her?
This has truly been a do-nothing House. And the idea of now having a do-nothing Senate is unthinkable. And here the media with their ludicrous narratives are very much to blame. That will be the subject of a coming post.
For more on recent polling see:
Are the Polls Wrong?
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