Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Letter to Andrew Sullivan

9/23/09

Andrew,

I'm not sure you should take the results of this survey at face value (as you seemed to here). The sample size for the poll is 621, and the margin of error is +/- 3.9%. But only 35% of the respondents are Republican. That means that the margin of error for this subgroup is closer to +/- 6.65%. The pollster also notes that "other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify."

If you look at some of the other cross-tabulations, they're very difficult to believe. For example, according the poll, 22% those between the ages of 18 and 29 believe President Obama is the Anti-Christ. This compared to only 5% of those age 30 to 45; 9% of those age 46 to 65; and 7% of those over the age of 65.

Since when are younger people more predisposed to believe President Obama is the Anti-Christ? This contradicts every polling trend we've seen.

Anyway, I just think it's worth mentioning that conspiratorial thinking may not be as prevalent among Republicans as this poll leads us to believe.

Best,

Jeremy Biggs

2 comments:

Emily said...

"Dissent of the Day." "A reader writes:..."

If you really did send this in, I'll be on the lookout for it today!

mikhailbakunin said...

Yeah, I did email him, but it doesn't seem like he's interested. He referred to the results of the poll again today, without noting the unusually high margin of error.