Here's something that bears following up -- in a survey of 17,000 elections, the actual result and the poll result were compared by The 538 Blog. It's not a surprise that the polls are barely more accurate than a Farmer's Almanac weather prediction, but the actual numbers are interesting.
Forty percent of the time, the actual result was more than two standard deviations outside of the survey prediction! Recall from Statistics Class that a result two standeard deviations should only happen 5% of the time.
More at 538., an innovative statistics site that was originally focused on a crucial number of Congress seats, 538, and, like all good blogs, went from being one man's dream to being part of the big media scene: Nate Silver now blogs at the New York Times!
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