Alabama votes today for a senator to replace Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate to become Trump’s Attorney General. Polls trying to predict the outcome are all over the map, from showing a big edge for Democrat Doug Jones, as unlikely as that seems in bright red Alabama, to showing a big edge for Republican Roy Moore, who struggles with allegations he hit on underage girls as a young adult, 40 years ago.
Why all the disparity in polling? Number cruncher Nate Silver writes a long column at his FiveThirtyEight website, explaining the whys and wherefores of polling - how the various polls draw unrepresentative samples and what they try to do to adjust their data to more closely model the actual voting population.
All of this is very much the “inside baseball” of politics and, as such, not everyone’s cup of tea. On the other hand, if you read COTTonLINE regularly you may find the intricacies of politics interesting. If you do, you may enjoy Silver’s mini-lecture on the various polling methodologies and the shortcomings of each.
