Reply #137: Here's Two Of Them, Beet

[ProfessorGAC]

And, btw, i've taught more advanced statistics classes than TIA has even considered taking. (And you know that to be the truth.)

First, he uses an MoE of 1.5%. Nowhere does it show how that polling sample would be 25% less variable than a standard poll, which almost always round DOWN (due to sample size) to 2%. That would inflate the distribution of the final analysis by a factor of 4/3 which moves the tails farther from the mean. Since the distributions are not linear, at that end of the curve, it could move the probabilities out by a factor of more than 100.

Secondly, there is a broad unsupportable assumption that 60% of the undecideds would vote dem. Since the dems didn't get 60% of the total vote, that is an assumption for which there is ZERO basis in fact. Since the "undecideds" were a statistically significant portion of the sample, the entire rest of the analysis hinges COMPLETELY on that assumption.

Without acquiring the whole data set and doing a more supportable analysis, i would estimate the final conclusion to be off by a factor of AT LEAST 100,000.
The Professor