Wednesday 9 March 2016

Electability Poll Hogswallop'

Head to Head polls make screaming headlines.  Trump loses to Clinton, Sanders, Cruz and even Rubio.   The winning margin in past US presidential elections is inside the margin of error of many past polls.  See the data.    "Loses by 2"   "Wins by 3" in head-to-head are close to meaningless remarks at this stage and verbiage promoting such freakily scandalous and stunning news qualifies for hogswallop.

The data in 2012 shows Romney within a percent of two of Obama right up to election night.  He wasn't a loser until that final Tuesday. The second chart shows the percent of the popular vote that went to the winner in recent presidential campaigns. Apart from a couple blowouts with Reagan, Johnson and Nixon, many races are close and indeterminate until voting day.  The first chart is from Real Clear Polling and the second from Wikipedia.



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