Shot in the Dark

Tag: Jacobs

  • Shot In The Dark: Today’s News, Two Years Ago

    Nate Silver at the NYTimes has been widely respected for his ability as a statistician. His reputation, though, seems to stem largely from his facility at what amount to rhetorical parlor tricks (he once earned a bit of a living counting cards at poker, and he made a name for himself with baseball stats), and…

  • All That’s Silver Does Not Glitter

    While the national polls show the presidential race a statistical toss-up, Nate Silver points out that polls conducted in swing state show Obama with an actual lead of sorts – around three points:. While that isn’t an enormous difference in an absolute sense, it is a consequential one. A one- or two-point lead for Mr.…

  • You Get One Guess

    Minnesota Public Radio’s Mark Zdechlik notes that Minnesota could very well see a lot more nail-biter races, because… …well, we all know how this works, don’t we?  Minnesota is more polarized, and the parties are more extreme.  Right? Analysts say elections have become so close because Republicans and Democrats share almost the same number of…

  • The Great Poll Scam Part XI: Weasels Rip My Results

    Professor Larry Jacobs – by far the most-quoted non-elected person in Minnesota – defends the Humphrey Institute Poll: Differences between polls may not be substantively significant as illustrated by the case of MinnPost’s poll with St. Cloud State, which showed Dayton with a 10 point lead, and the MPR/HHH poll, which reported a 12 point…

  • The Great Poll Scam, Part X: Weasel Words

    I’ve been raising kids for a long time.  Before that, I grew up around a bunch of them.  Indeed, I was one myself, once. And I know now as I knew then the same thing that every single person who watches Cops knows, instinctively; if you think someone did something, and their response is “you…

  • The Great Poll Scam Part IX: The Rockstar Who Couldn’t See His Face In The Mirror

    In reading Professor Larry Jacobs’ defense of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute poll – which always underpolls Republicans in its immediate pre-election survey, by an average of six points, with the tendency even more exaggerated in close races – Jacobs writes (with emphasis added): Appropriately interpreting Minnesota polls as a snapshot is especially important because…

  • The Great Poll Scam Part VIII: Snapshots That Never Come Into Focus

    I was reading Larry Jacobs’ defense of the Humphrey Institute’s shoddy work this past election. His first point in defense is that polls are “a snapshot in time”: Polls do not offer a “prediction” about which candidate “will” win. Polls are only a snapshot of one point in time. The science of survey research rests…