Walker v. Warnock v. Fate

Talk about close shaves: Tuesday’s Senatorial election in Georgia didn’t leave even a follicle.  Incumbent Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Republican Herschel Walker are virtually tied: Warnock with 49.4% of the vote, Walker with 48.5%.  The Libertarian Chase Oliver received 2.1%. Presumably those votes would otherwise have gone to Walker, who would have just eked above 50%.  As it was, no candidate exceeded 50%, triggering a December 6 runoff, sans spoilsport Oliver. 

A choice for sure.  Warnock was the pastor at Martin Luther King’s old church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta, and he is a moderate a la Biden. Walker won the Heisman Trophy as a running back for the University of Georgia Bulldogs in 1982 and is a cheerleader for former President Donald Trump.

What are their supporters like?  Let’s look at a major media survey, The New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted in October 24-27 of 604 likely voters in Georgia—not a huge sample, but probably the best that we can hope for with a detailed questionnaire like this.  The table below summarizes results for respondents who were “very favorable” or “very unfavorable” about the two candidates: The “D” denotes “Democrat” (Warnock) and the “R” “Republican” (Walker). 

Most respondents had strong opinions about both candidates: 70% were very favorable or very unfavorable towards Pastor Warnock, and 66% towards Walker.  But of the staunch views about Walker, nearly two-thirds were unfavorable, probably because of accusations that he had paid for an abortion by one girlfriend and compelled another to abort. Walker denied that he had paid for abortions in either case, although The Daily Beast reported that it had seen a receipt from the clinic and his check.  He wants to ban all abortions.  Asked which candidate was the “more honest and trustworthy,” 49% of the respondents named Warnock and just 37% Walker.    

Both candidates are African-American, but white respondents were much more critical of Warnock (51%) than of Walker (28%). Ditto for respondents older than 65. But the kids disdain   Walker: Of respondents aged 18 to 29 (in the third part of the table), only 4% had a very favorable view.  

Women were also more likely to be negative about Walker (45%) than about Warnock (35%).  Perhaps this reflects Walker’s adamant stance on abortion. Of all respondents, 49% preferred a candidate who wanted most or all abortions legal and only 27% a candidate who wanted most or all abortions illegal. Indeed, only 9% wanted a candidate who would ban all abortions. 

Curiously, respondents without college degrees had about the same view of both candidates.  But those with bachelors degrees were harder on Walker than on Warnock (in the third part of the table). This may owe something to Walker’s devotion to Trump.

In fact, Presidential politics have an indelible impression on this race.  Of respondents who voted for Biden in 2020, only 2% have a very favorable view of Walker. And of those who voted for Trump, 2% had a very favorable view of Warnock. Congruent patterns hold for respondents who now approve or disapprove of Biden.  These trends, incidentally, also described likely voters in the gubernatorial race between Republican incumbent Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams. Kemp won handily, although Trump had vitiated him in the Republican primary.  We’ll see whether Trump’s blessing of Walker is a blessing for him on December 6.  – Leon Taylor, Baltimore tayloralmaty@gmail.com   

 

View	Total (D)	Total (R)	65+ (D)	65+ (R)	White (D)	White (R)	No BA (D)	No BA (R)
Very favorable	34%	25%	31%	45%	23%	33%	31%	30%
Very unfavorable	36%	41%	53%	35%	51%	28%	40%	37%

 

View	Biden 2020 (D)	Biden 2020 (R)	Trump 2020 (D)	Trump 2020 (R)	Biden approve (D)	Biden approve (R)	Biden disapprove (D)	Biden disapprove (R)
Very favorable	68%	2%	2%	53%	71%	4%	7%	41%
Very unfavorable	4%	76%	75%	7%	4%	78%	61%	15%

 

View	Male (D)	Male  (R)	Female (D)	Female (R)	18-29 (D)	18-29 (R)	BA (D)	BA (R)
Very favorable	31%	23%	37%	26%	27%	4%	39%	17%
Very unfavorable	37%	36%	35%	45%	22%	35%	31%	46%

 

Note

In the most recent count, Warnock had 1,941,499 votes; Walker, 1,906,246; and Oliver, 81,175. Had all of Oliver’s votes gone to Walker, he would have finished with 50.6%.

 

References

Marquise Francis.  2022.  Crucial Georgia Senate race between Warnock, Walker heads to December runoff.  Yahoo News, November 9.  Retrieved from yahoo.com

The New York Times.  2022.  Georgia U.S. Senate Election Results.  November 10.  Retrieved from nytimes.com

Christopher Wilson.  Herschel Walker stumbles in attempt to respond to allegation he paid for girlfriend's abortion.  Yahoo News, October 6.  Retrieved from yahoo.com

The Great Divide

 

In a sense, the United States are becoming more united.  In Tuesday’s elections, national politics pervade even local races.

The gubernatorial race in Georgia illustrates the molten politics of the moment, as revealed by The New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in October 24-27 of 604 respondents.  Likely voters are passionate, for or against, about both candidates.  For the Democrat candidate, Stacey Abrams, 34% of the respondents had a very favorable view and 41% a very unfavorable one.  For the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, 32% held a very favorable view and 26% a very unfavorable one.  Thus for both candidates a majority of the respondents held extreme views.

Demographics likewise diverge.  Abrams faces stiff resistance from likely voters older than 65, white, or lacking a bachelor’s degree.  They strongly back Kemp.  See the first table below, where (A) denotes the percentage of respondents discussing Abrams and (K) Kemp.

Washington’s footprint is in the second table. Respondents who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 enthuse for Abrams, and Donald Trump voters revile her.  The opposite is true for Kemp, although Trump attacked him in the Republican primary.  (In 2020, Governor Kemp rejected Trump's demand that he call a legislative session to scuttle Biden's victory in the state,) Similar extremes hold for respondents who now approve or disapprove of President Biden.

The results may exaggerate the impact of national politics on the gubernatorial race, since no poll questions concerned statewide issues.  The closest was the respondents’ view of abortion: 49% preferred a candidate who wanted most or all abortions legal and only 27% a candidate who wanted most or all abortions illegal—a sign of hope, perhaps, for Abrams.

 

View	Total (A)	Total (K)	65+ (A)	65+ (K)	White (A)	White (K)	No BA (A)	No BA (K)
Very favorable	34%	32%	26%	52%	19%	44%	29%	35%
Very unfavorable	41%	26%	54%	19%	59%	17%	46%	22%

 

View	Biden 2020 (A)	Biden 2020 (K)	Trump 2020 (A)	Trump 2020 (K)	Biden approve (A)	Biden approve (K)	Biden disapprove (A)	Biden disapprove (K)
Very favorable	72%	4%	1%	64%	69%	5%	8%	52%
Very unfavorable	2%	53%	85%	1%	3%	53%	70%	5%

 The New York Times does not go out of its way to enlighten readers about its polling methods.  Concerning the sample, its description begins: “The survey is a stratified response-rate-adjusted probability-proportionate-to-size sample of the L2 voter file.” It goes downhill from there.

—   Leon Taylor, Baltimore, tayloralmaty@gmail.com

 

Reference

Reid J. Epstein and Ruth Igielnik.  2022.  In close, crucial governor’s races, poll finds sharp split on elections.  The New York Times, November 1.  Retrieved from nytimes.com

Amy Gardner, Colby Itkowitz, and Josh Dawsey.  2020.  Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state.  The Washington Post, December 5.  Retrieved from washingtonpost.com

  

 

The fire this time

 

If Space X impresses you, wait until you see inflation in Kazakhstan.  In October the annual consumer rate hit 18.8%, up by more than one percentage point from the previous month.  If prices rise continuously at that pace, they will double in less than four years.

Consumers and the government are egging on inflation.  So far this year, government spending has raised the money supply at the annual rate of 18.9%, reports the National Bank. (The money supply here is M3, which includes savings accounts as well as cash and debit accounts.)  Retail turnover for the first nine months of 2022 was up 15.7% over the same period last year.  The economy is white hot.  

A Keynesian folk legend says inflation matters less than unemployment, because if you have a job, you can pay high prices. But wages often lag consumer prices.  Unskilled workers have little bargaining power, and they cannot raise their pay to keep pace with inflation as torrid as Kazakhstan’s.  Their purchasing power will plummet. They may have jobs, but not much else.  And as prices keep rising, choking off aggregate demand, pretty soon they won't have jobs, either.

Last week the Bank raised the base annual interest rate, a benchmark for the economy, to 16%, from 14.5%, a huge leap. The Bank is grappling with the public’s sizzling expectations of inflation for the coming year of 16.9%.  When people expect prices to rise, they buy more now, creating inflation immediately.  To lower expectations, the Bank must cool off the economy by raising interest rates, which will discourage spending fueled by loans.  

And the Bank drily notes, “The overwhelming growth of budget expenditures in the current year requires a compensating reaction….”  This statement is remarkable.  When Nursultan Nazarbayev was President, the National Bank was a creature of the government. Indeed, under the Bank's charter, its governor serves at the President's pleasure.  Governor Galymzhan Pirmatov may be exerting a bit of welcome independence.  

The vise-like tightening of monetary policy may bring on recession.  Indeed, it is hard to see any other way that the Bank can lower inflationary expectations in a country that has never seen a rate of inflation below 5% since becoming independent in 1991.  Inflationary expectations have been building for more than two years, and the majority of respondents in a September Bank survey said they expected inflation to hold constant or rise.   But Astana may respond to recession by spending even more, aggravating the Bank’s headache.

The Bank has courage.  Will courage be enough?  –Leon Taylor, Baltimore tayloralmaty@gmail.com       

 

References

National Bank of Kazakhstan.  2022.  Inflation expectations: September 2022.  Report.  nationalbank.kz

National Bank of Kazakhstan.  2022. The base rate was raised to 16%.  Press release, October 26. nationalbank.com 

Smoke and mirrors at The New York Times

Sometimes the critical detail in a news story is invisible.

Consider polling, one of the few areas where the news media still have the edge over other purveyors of information. Since anyone can text a message or post a cell-phone picture, the newspapers and newscasts no longer have a monopoly on even foreign news. But John Q. Public cannot afford to run a legitimate nationwide poll.  (He can post an online survey and invite responses, of course.  But this won't produce a random sample, since only the most motivated will reply, which skewers the sample.)  Only a few newspapers and TV networks can afford good polling.  

Traditionally, articles and newscasts about polls in political races gave the sampling error.  This measures the mistake that you can make by drawing, from the sample, larger conclusions.  For example, a newspaper may survey a few hundred likely voters in a Senate race to infer what all likely voters will do in that election.  The reason for publishing the sampling error is to enable the reader to check the reporter's claims, although I am not sure that today's journalists realize this. One double-checks because reporters are not exactly experts on statistics.   

Anyway, The New York Times, which sets the pace for US news media, has stopped publishing sampling errors in the main text of its new stories.  

In the past week, it failed to mention sampling errors in two stories about its polls concerning United States elections.  The co-author of both stories is Ruth Igielnik, a polling editor for The Times. Previous stories had given the sampling error at the end of the article.

The reader and the leader

In one of the stories, The Times declared a slight lead for one candidate when in fact the lead was less than the sampling error.  This was in the Georgia Senate race (a lead of 3%; the sampling error was plus or minus 4.8%).  In the other story, on four gubernatorial races, the comparison of the lead to the sampling error is less clear, as I'll explain.

The reported leads in the gubernatorial races varied:  0% in Arizona (Democrat Katie Hobbs versus Republican Kari Lake); 4% in Nevada (Republican Joe Lombardo); 6% in Georgia (Republican incumbent Brian Kemp); and 13% in Pennsylvania (Democrat Josh Shapiro).  The polling leads were rounded. I think we can agree that the Democrats are winning in Pennsylvania and that the Arizona race is anybody’s guess.  The question concerns Nevada and Georgia.  The Times finds a “narrow” preference for Kemp and a “slim lead” for Lombardo.   

The story on the gubernatorial races is linked to The Times/Siena College poll for the midterm elections.  For example, one question is: “Thinking ahead to the November midterm election, are you almost certain that you will vote, very likely to vote, somewhat likely to vote, not very likely to vote or not at all likely to vote?”  The Times treats the Senate and gubernatorial races as part of the same election. But a respondent may well interpret "the November midterm election" as applying to only national races.  In any event, the distribution of likely voters in Senate elections is likely to differ from that for state offices.

If we accept The Times's assumption of the same distribution for state and national races, then the sampling error in Nevada, plus or minus 4.2%, slightly exceeds Lombardo's edge.    

Why does the comparison of the reported winner’s edge to the sampling error matter?  One reason is that it affects campaign finances.  When the newspapers report a toss-up in the final weeks of a campaign, donors judge a fifty-fifty chance that the favored candidate will win.  When the papers report a slight edge for that candidate, the donors perceive a better-than-even chance of a successful donation and hence are more likely to pony up. When the newspapers ignore the sampling error, they overstate the candidate’s perceived chances of winning and thus can cost the donors money.

Covering up

Why then would the newspaper understate, or ignore, the sampling error?  Perhaps it thinks that the traditional criterion for the error is too rigorous.  The rule of thumb is that you don’t declare the candidate as winning unless there is less than a 5% chance that you will be wrong. (I’m not certain that The Times applied this rule, because its polling link nowhere specifies the confidence interval, another violation of basic rules for statistical reporting. Basically, the confidence interval states the chances that you will be right to declare the candidate a winner. The usual confidence interval applied is 95%.  In other words, you won't declare the candidate to be winning unless chances are at least 95% that you are right.) There is no particular reason for the 5% rule.  The newspaper may be willing to tolerate a larger chance of being wrong, because the news value of a clear conclusion from the poll (“Smith is winning!”) exceeds the likely cost to the newspaper of a mistake, since people will probably never discover its error (“Suddenly, the dynamics of the race changed!”). 

An alternative to this Machiavellian reasoning is that the newspaper regards political races as a sport. It is entertainment, and an error about its outcome won’t matter much.  Finally, of course, maybe the newspaper doesn't have a clue.  

Whatever.  If the newspaper doesn't know what a sampling error is, it should find out.  It should explain how it is handling the error and why.

To see why, suppose that it adopts a smaller confidence interval than the traditional 95% (that is, it permits a larger chance of an error than 5%) but does not tell the reader. Donors will think that the usual 5% rule still holds, and they will overestimate the candidate’s chances of winning.

Trumptistics

A larger question looms.  The historical purpose of the newspapers has been to promote democracy by enabling readers to think for themselves.  They reported both sides of an issue, even when one side struck the reporter as much weaker than the other, because they thought the reader should decide for herself. But since the 2016 election of former President Donald Trump, and especially since his accusations of fraud in the 2020 election that he lost, the newspapers have increasingly discounted the ostensibly weaker side of an issue, often as “baseless.”

Of course, the 2020 election was legitimate.  My point is that the newspapers should enable the reader to decide. They don’t have to repeat the evidence against Trump’s charges in every story; just provide a link.  Ritually characterizing the claims as groundless makes the characterization a shibboleth. Eventually, people forget the reason for calling them groundless, and they may then suspect that the charges were correct.  John Stuart Mill pointed to this danger in his 1859 essay “On Liberty.”

The same reasoning applies to statistical reporting.  Times readers are highly educated, and they would take an interest in the newspaper’s statistical analysis. The Times should provide a sidebar or link explaining sampling errors, with examples that the general reader can follow.

I wrote The Times yesterday morning asking why its story failed to report the sampling errors. I received no reply.

--Leon Taylor (gingerly climbing down from his soapbox), Baltimore, tayloralmaty@gmail.com

 November 6: This update corrects a mistake about The Times's omission of sampling errors. In its link to detailed results, The Times assumes the same sampling error for gubernatorial races as for Senate races.

References

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

Reid J. Epstein and Ruth Igielnik.  2022.  In close, crucial governor’s races, poll finds sharp split on elections.  The New York Times, November 1.  Retrieved from nytimes.com