I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
According to an e-mail sent to supporters by Albuquerque mayoral candidate Richard Romero’s staff, the Romero campaign believes that mayor Martin Chavez “is done.” The e-mail cites the Albuquerque Journal poll released yesterday—which showed Romero in last place, but perhaps not as far behind has he thought.
The e-mail says:
Richard Romero and Martin Chavez are in a statistical dead heat (at 24% and 26% respectively, with a 5% margin of error) and Richard Berry holds a statistically insignificant lead (for now) at 31%. Most importantly, the poll shows that 19% of likely voters are still undecided. They will take Romero over the top!
So is it a “statistical dead heat” between Romero and Chavez? The National Council on Public Polls (NCPP) says that it shouldn’t be characterized this way.
Certainly, if the gap between the two candidates is less than the sampling error margin, you should not say that one candidate is ahead of the other. You can say the race is “close,” the race is “roughly even,” or there is “little difference between the candidates.” But it should not be called a “dead heat” unless the candidates are tied with the same percentages. And it certainly is not a “statistical tie” unless both candidates have the same exact percentages.
And as for Berry holding a “statistically insignificant lead,” the NCPP says this:
When the gap between the two candidates is more than the error margin but less than twice the error margin, you should say that Candidate A “is ahead,” “has an advantage” or “holds an edge.” The story should mention that there is a small possibility that Candidate B is ahead of Candidate A.
In other words, it is close between Romero and Chavez, and there is a small chance that Chavez could be leading Berry.
Romero says that while Chavez has “90 percent name ID,” he still can’t do better than 26 percent, as he should in the weeks leading up to the election. It is unclear where the 90 percent name ID number comes from (perhaps campaign polling) but it wasn’t mentioned in the Albuquerque Journal story about the recent data from Research and Polling, Inc.
Romero is still holding out hope, however, as his campaign writes, “Any professional pollster will tell you undecided voters are not likely to vote for an incumbent. These undecided voters will vote for the challenger.”
While widely held as true, the so-called “incumbent rule” (which states that undecided voters will break for the challenger), in 2006 Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal wrote a post about the supposed weakening of the rule.
“One thing worth noting is that academic political scientists and survey researchers have devoted little if any attention to the incumbent rule,” Blumenthal concluded in an update to the post. “We certainly have a lot to learn about this “cardinal rule,” despite its past popularity with campaign pollsters including yours truly.”
While the Albuquerque Journal story on the poll said “Romero has been largely left alone by the other two candidates, with no advertising aimed at his campaign,” this appears to have changed. The e-mail from the Romero campaign says “robo-calls attacking Richard have already begun.”
If any candidate does not reach 40 percent of voters in the October 6 election, there will be a run-off election on November 24.
