US Election 2004

The media’s use of polling has been terrible in this presidential campaign.  Consider the following comments from the height of the California gubernatorial campaign last year which Bustamante lost:

Many years ago, the media pledged to be more responsible in reporting political poll results by amongst other things clearly considering and disclosing the margin of error for the sample. Today, they should consider adding a margin of error to their reporting where bad reporting tends to propagate unchecked.

Last weekend, I did not comment on the recent Field Poll in California, because I mistakenly thought it was not that important. However, since then, it has taken on a life of its own.

On Saturday, the Washington Post broadly proclaimed "Poll Places Bustamante In Lead to Succeed Davis". However, the poll actually says it does NOT know who is leading in California's gubernatorial race. Given the polls uncertainty and its contradiction of other polls, it has not rated the media attention it received unless the objective is to inflate the Bustamante campaign.

According to the poll results, Bustamante holds a 3 point lead (25 % Bustamante vs. 22% Schwarzenegger). However, in contradiction to the headline, William Booth does report much later in the piece that the poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.1%. Meanwhile, FoxNews reported that the margin of error for the poll was +/- 5% and MSNBC reported the poll result without disclosing the margin of error.

Given the large margin of error for the poll, the relatively small share of the candidates (25% and less), and the contradiction of other poll results, there has been a lot of smoke from the media, but no fire. While the poll could be a harbinger of another collapsing Republican campaign in California, it does not merit the certainty displayed in the reporting.

Ironically, if Bustamante can not replicate these results in subsequent polls, the same media, which built him up by spreading this inflated story, could just as quickly proclaim a free fall in his campaign. For example, if the next poll shows him at 21%, given the margin of error from the poll samples, the poll results would be consistent yet the media reporting would not be. [Margin of Error, GMUOC, 8/21/2003]

Frankly, earlier in the summer the media claimed that polls showed Kerry ahead or increasing, when actually the poll showed nothing other than results that were too close to call.  Now, after the Republican convention, Bush has broken out with a lead exceeding the poll’s margin of error.  Consequently, Kerry is depicted as loosing a lead he may never have had. 

If Kerry fails to gain new traction and Democrats start to ask what happened, the answer is that the media bustamanted Kerry.

Former California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante
Image Source: Univision

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