Examine A Population In The News - Essay Example

A Revisit of the Article “Obama Lead Varies in 3 Polls with No One Declaring Which is best: A Review of the Context and Statistics Used Institutional Affiliation:Introduction This paper provides a review of a news poll article presented in the Bloomberg L.P. site (website: http://www.bloomberg.com/). The article, published on 12th June 2012, contrasts the results of three different polls by the Bloomberg (Bloomberg National Poll), the Associated Press (AP Poll), and the Pew Research Center (Tacket, 2012).

It reports that President Barack Obama, at the time headed for the Presidential Polls with his closest rival, Republican Mitt Romney, had taken a lead in all three polls. However, the reporter was concerned about the obvious lack of consistency, such that the results differed across the three; and presented a review with the idea of recommending one poll as being better than the other two. Discussion In the Bloomberg National Poll the incumbent was reported to have opened a 13 point advantage over Romney, 4 points advantage in the Pew Research Center Poll, and 3 points in the AP Poll.

In an attempt to explain the disparities in the figures reported, methodological issues and change in opinions by voters (considering how closely rated the candidates were) were cited. Drawing from an expert’s position, the reporter cited voter commitment as low, which led to massive swaying of potential voters who were polled. However, these adduced low levels of voter commitment were not measured. Among the poll questions were candidates’ favorability ratings, in which Romney’s score sank back to the initial 39% when he entered the presidential race, becoming 17% more ill-favored.

The Bloomberg poll also found out that Obama had gained a 19 points advantage over his opponent in terms of being in touch with the ordinary citizens. On their part, Pew Research Center’s results showed that Obama was voted as being 31% ahead of Romney in terms of being in touch with the ordinary citizens (Tacket, 2012). The Bloomberg poll had a slightly higher percentage of respondents who believed the country was headed the wrong direction (62%), against the AP’s 60%. You would expect these high percentages to impact the incumbent’s rating negatively.

However, the three pollsters showed a contrasting trend, which could indicate extreme losses for the opponent. In fact, this has been highlighted by the recorded further 17% of respondents who ill-favored the Republican candidate at the time, Mitt Romney. In the Bloomberg survey, 1002 adult respondents were polled, and the scores associated with their responses had an error margin of ±3.1%. Out of this sample, 734 were registered voters, and their responses’ margin of error was ±3.6%. In the AP poll, 1007 adults responded to pollster’s questions, and their overall results had a ±4.

0% margin of error. Of this sample, 878 were registered voters, and their results were found to have a ±4.2% margin of error. 2013 adults were polled by the Pew Research Center, with results having a ±2.5% margin of error. In this poll, 1563 were registered voters, and they had a ±2.9% margin of error. According to these findings, the margin of error represents the value below or above the sample average that will have the observed characteristic when the results are generalized to cover the entire population.

For instance, the Bloomberg poll found that 62% of respondents believed that the country was headed the wrong direction, with an accompanying margin of error ±3.1%. This means that the confidence interval (range within which the actual statistic for the entire population sampled from) falls between 62±3.1 = [58.9%, 65.1%]. Equally, the AP poll on the same question falls within the margin 60±4 = [56%, 64%]. This figure is often misinterpreted to imply the level of confidence (95% in this case) (Lang, 2004).

The respective values of the two polls therefore overlap between 58.9% and 64%. Perhaps, the reliability of these results can be adduced, partly, from this overlap. I would propose that the higher the margin of overlap between parallel polls on the same subject, the higher the reliability of the results.ReferencesLang, T. (2004, August 4). Margin of ignorance. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved from http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/margin_of_ignorance.php?page=all&print=true (Accessed: 19th Sept. 2014).Tacket, M.

(2012, June 12). Obama lead varies in 3 polls with no one declaring which is best. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved from < http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-22/obama-lead-varies-in-3-polls-with-no-one-declaring-which-is-best.html>. (Accessed: 19th Sept. 2014).