Who's really winning the US Senate races?

 

The New York Times correctly reports that, judging from its surveys of likely voters in Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, Democratic control of the Senate is on “a knife’s edge.” But in the Georgia race, it says Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock “leads narrowly in a tight race” (a redundancy) by a rounded margin of 3%, although the margin of sampling error (not reported in the story) is larger, plus or minus 4.8%. That race is actually a toss-up.

In the other races, the margin of advantage was, in Arizona, 6% (margin of error, 4.4%); Nevada, 0% (4.2%); and Pennsylvania, 6% (4.4%). So there is solid evidence of a (small) lead in only Arizona and Pennsylvania, at the time of the survey. In both cases, the Democrats have the edge.

Why doesn’t The Times report the sampling errors in the story rather than relegate them to a link? That said, The Times deserves kudos for detailed statistics in that link.  Even if it doesn't share them with the general reader.

After the poll, in Pennsylvania, the Democrat contender, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, who had a stroke several months ago, delivered a substandard performance against Republican Mehmet Oz.  “In calls made on Wednesday,” The Times reported, “a plurality of voters said Mr. Fetterman was not healthy enough to do the job—though Mr. Fetterman still maintained a slight lead over Dr. Oz among all Wednesday respondents.” The Times did not report the exact statistics from that phone survey.  But to say that Fetterman maintained a lead “among all Wednesday respondents” is a cop-out.  The reader cares about the race, not the survey. The Times should interpret the survey for the reader. Does it confirm that Fetterman is in the lead, or doesn’t it?  –Leon Taylor, Baltimore, tayloralmaty@gmail.com

 

Reference

Lisa Lerer and Ruth Igielnik.  2022.  Senate control hinges on neck-and-neck races, Times/Siena poll finds.  The New York Times, October 31.  Retrieved from nytimes.com