Reply #3: Basically the margin of error

[SheilaT]

is the point spread. So if someone is polling at 20% with a moe of 2, the real number could as easily be 18% or 22%. The higher the moe, the greater the spread.

If the moe is 5%, and one guy polls 20% and the other guy at 25%, they are within the moe and perhaps tied, although it's likely the guy with 25% really has a little more support than the one with 20%, at least at the time the poll was taken.

I remember reading several years ago, before the 2000 election, that reputable pollsters were getting more and more concerned about the reliability of their polling. One reason is that it is harder and harder to get people to actually agree to participate in a poll. Lots of people with caller ID screen calls and won't pick up for a polling organization. More and more people, especially young ones, only have cell phones these days, which are not callable for polling purposes. The result is that pollsters are more and more uncertain if the people they get are truly representative.

When it comes to November 2, 2004, the only reliable polling will be exit polls, but that may well not happen. We need to be very fearful of what's going on, not simply the horrors the Bush Administration is inflicting on the country and the rest of the world.