A new Monmouth University poll released Monday refutes a previous poll’s finding that the race for U.S. Senate in North Carolina between House Speaker Thom Tillis and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is tied. Instead, the new poll finds what most other recent polls have shown —that Hagan holds a small lead.
The Monmouth poll found Hagan leading Tillis 48 percent to 46 percent among likely voters while 1 percent said they support Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh and 4 percent said they were undecided.
This poll’s findings contradicts an NBC News/Marist poll over the weekend which said Hagan and Tillis were tied at 43 percent each while Haugh pulled 7 percent support. This is the first time Monmouth has polled this Senate race.
Again, most polls have shown Hagan with a small single-digit lead over Tillis.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted among 432 North Carolina likely voters between October 23 and October 26. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
The TPM Polltracker finds Tillis with a slight 0.6 point lead over Hagan.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Is there anyone on staff who took probability and statistics or a survey research course in college?
a) You can’t compare one pollster’s poll to another pollster’s poll such that you can say she’s “back up.” That’s the headline-writer’s fault, assuming it was written by someone other than Daniel.
b) A poll that shows them within two is statistically indistinguishable from a poll that shows them tied. It is statistically significant that almost all polls show her a few points ahead and only a few partisan polls show Tillis head, if you use an appropriate aggregation model, particularly one that drops suspect partisan polls, but you can’t do a poll to poll comparison–even if the two polls are by the same pollster using the same methodology and call a two point difference meaningful.
c) Polls are only “information” if we understand their epistemicogical limits. When we make statements that sound like conclusions drawn from data that are not, in fact, knowable from that data, it is the opposite of information. It is misinformation, or even disinformation.
My gut still says that Hagan is safe. Her support seems to continue to consolidate around her (the number of no opinions keeps dwindling, with more going to her than Tillis), as it has for little over a month now.
Tillis needed an outside event or a wave, quite frankly, and neither happened. He was really betting on Obamacare being the main issue for the campaign trail and well…that never happened.
She could have played it a bit tougher and gone after him on things like education a bit longer than she did, but she is playing not to lose and I think she succeeded.
I hope you are right. I am not convinced yet. After watching what I thought was the rising of my state, poised to lead the new south being dragged backwards by corporate and Alec henchmen, my faith was shaken.
Ye gads! A margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. Meaning it can be an almost 5% difference either way. I must say that, that is a poll that means nothing.
You are closer to it than we are down here in Georgia. But I am rooting for Hagan and Nunn