Why fewer poll results means more election uncertainty

Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics ran through an experiment on Twitter, meant to demonstrate why big shifts in polling may not actually reflect reality.

Imagine a scenario in which you have one poll a day tracking the presidential election. Let’s say the true state of the race is that it is tied, and that poll has a margin of error of 3 points. On Monday, you might get a result in which Donald Trump leads by 4. That’s within the margin of error: If the poll estimates that support for Hillary Clinton is 3 points lower than it actually is and 1 point higher for Trump, you get a 4-point spread. The next day, the poll says Trump leads by 1 point. The next day, Clinton is up by 2.

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To an outside observer, it looks like Clinton has gained 6 points in two days. In reality, though, we know that the state of the race hasn’t changed at all, because that’s the rule we set.

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