Maybe this should have been posted earlier. One of the more common features by bad bloggers and even worse news reports is the constant beating of the latest poll numbers. Bloggers will sound the trumpets when their supported candidate is ahead in the polls (while gleefully ignoring when the news is bad or attempt to discredit the poll, that they had just supported, when it is not in their favor).
This is not to say that polls are a bad thing. Polls are a wonderful tool when used correctly. The correct use of polls is the monitor how the electorate has made shifts on positions/candidates over a period of time. All too often polls are used as a means of predicting who the winner will be months or days before the election. Again this is what bad bloggers and worse news casts do.
That being said today we are going to look at some of the more recent polling data from across several different pollsters and than compare them to some of their previous polls taken (and we are not going to try and make a prediction!).
Going back to the ancient times of Aug 31 Rasmussen released a poll of likely voters showing Mr. Rossi in the lead (50-47). The margin of error for this poll sits right at 4%. As August turned to September we begin to see Senator Murray take the lead back. On 9/14 both CNN/Time and Rasmussen polled likely voters and came up with some different results. CNN showed Sen. Murray ahead (53-44). Rasmussen also had Sen. Murray ahead (51-46). The margin of error for the CNN poll was 3.5 while Rasmussen stood at an even 4.0.
What these polls can tell us will probably depend more on our own personal partisan lens. What we can clearly see from this is that the race is still competitive. For the moment the pendulum is swinging in favor of Sen. Murray. The voters of Washington at the moment seem to be on an upward trend towards Sen. Murray. As time goes by and more polls are released we will revisit the idea of using polls as a means of observing general attitude changes and not as a forecast of who is going to win in November.
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