{"id":3117,"date":"2010-11-01T14:06:59","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T18:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3117"},"modified":"2010-11-02T08:18:27","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T12:18:27","slug":"what-do-close-polls-actually-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/01\/what-do-close-polls-actually-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What do close polls actually tell us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, I reported here on the blog about Siena’s 48th Senate poll.\u00a0 Patty Ritchie was up 4% over Darrel Aubertine.\u00a0 My headline was “Ritchie up 4% in 48th Senate poll”.<\/a> I also reported in the post that the poll’s margin\u00a0 of error was 4.7%, meaning the result was within the margin of error.<\/p>\n

In response to the post, commenter notinthevillage wrote this:<\/p>\n

If the confidence intervals overlap, as is the case here, nobody is in the lead. The reported mean (47% and 43%) are no more likely to be the correct number then any other number within the confidence interval.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This has raised a couple questions in the newsroom.<\/p>\n

First, for statisticians: is this true?\u00a0 If a result is within the margin of error, does it really mean it’s as likely as any other outcome with the margin of error?\u00a0 Is there any statistical difference between Ritchie up 4% and Ritchie up 2% or Aubertine up 2%?\u00a0 Do those different outcomes tell us anything at all about the relative momentum in the race?<\/p>\n

Nationwide, polls<\/a> are most often reported for their results first <\/a>(and in the headline).\u00a0 Whether those results are within the margin of error is usually within the first paragraph or two.<\/p>\n

Siena itself headlines this poll “Ritchie has slim 4-point edge over Aubertine”.\u00a0 Obviously, Siena wants to make news.\u00a0 They wouldn’t if every poll within the margin of error was reported as “neck-and-neck” or “dead heat” or “tied”.<\/p>\n

How would you word the headline?<\/p>\n

Second, for everyone, what do you think of the newsworthiness of polls?\u00a0 Are they important snapshots of the race, or horserace reporting that distracts from the issues?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, I reported here on the blog about Siena’s 48th Senate poll.\u00a0 Patty Ritchie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}