On Friday, you may have seen a poll from a group called Blumenthal Research Daily, or BRD, purportedly showing a close race in the March 13 special election for Pennsylvania's 18th District. Political observers like Elliott Morris quickly noted that there was almost no information about who they were online, nor a record of their founder "Timothy Blumenthal" anywhere. Back in October, when BRD released numbers for Virginia's gubernatorial race, there were also plenty of unanswered questions about whether BRD was even a real outlet. Those questions were answered on Friday when they released a statement declaring, "Yes, Blumenthal Research Daily is a fake pollster. The numbers used were random and I did little to no research before piecing together a rather sloppy google doc."
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time a poll has generated attention despite some serious questions about whether it was, you know, real. All the way back in August, Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight took a look at some headline-grabbing "surveys," like a poll from Delphi Analytica that ostensibly showed Kid Rock leading Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow 30-26. No one had ever heard of Delphi Analytica before then, and there was little information about them on their website (which is no longer operative). But that didn't stop several outlets from writing stories on it, or from Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott from excitedly tweeting it out.
This new Blumenthal Research Daily "poll" is a good reminder that, especially in this day and age when it's incredibly easy to spread "poll results" far and wide, it's important to be careful not to get taken. Enten also wrote an article that we highly recommend about questions you should ask when looking at a poll from a group you've never heard of, or otherwise know little about. These include whether the poll looks professional (BRD and Delphi's crappy websites were good indications that they weren't professional operations); whether the pollster was revealing important details about the sample, like when it was conducted and what means were used; and what type of questions were being asked.
As the cycle goes on, we're expecting to see a whole lot more polls from dubious sources. And while it's easy (and appropriate) to laugh at the Greg Abbotts of the world who instantly share pro-Republican numbers, we need to be just as sceptical when a firm we don't know anything about shows Democrats doing well in races we badly want to win.
Source DailyKos.com
No comments:
Post a Comment