Fact-Check: Is McCain Within the Margin of Error?
By Alexander Lane
Politifact.com.
Sen. John McCain sounded upbeat in a Halloween morning interview on CNBC. But was the enthusiasm just a mask?
We can’t be sure. But we can check some data McCain cited to justify his optimism.
“I’m very optimistic, and we’re coming from behind,” McCain told anchor Larry Kudlow in the Oct. 31, 2008, interview. “I’m the underdog. There’s where we always like to be. But we are within the margin of error, my friends. And I’m very happy where we are.”
McCain was clearly talking about national polls, which are not necessarily indicative of Electoral College results. Nevertheless, only four presidents have won the election without winning the national popular vote — John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000.
So we looked at every national poll we could find from the past two days to see if McCain really is within the margin of error.
(More here.)
Politifact.com.
Sen. John McCain sounded upbeat in a Halloween morning interview on CNBC. But was the enthusiasm just a mask?
We can’t be sure. But we can check some data McCain cited to justify his optimism.
“I’m very optimistic, and we’re coming from behind,” McCain told anchor Larry Kudlow in the Oct. 31, 2008, interview. “I’m the underdog. There’s where we always like to be. But we are within the margin of error, my friends. And I’m very happy where we are.”
McCain was clearly talking about national polls, which are not necessarily indicative of Electoral College results. Nevertheless, only four presidents have won the election without winning the national popular vote — John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000.
So we looked at every national poll we could find from the past two days to see if McCain really is within the margin of error.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
There have been four “wrong winner” elections out of the nation’s 55 presidential elections. This is a failure rate of 1 in 14 (7%).
Also, half of American presidential elections are landslides (i.e., greater than 10% margin). Any system will produce the correct winner in a landslide. Thus, among the non-landslide elections, the failure rate is actually 1 in 7.
We are currently in an era of close presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and apparently 2008). We should therefore not be surprised to already have had one “wrong winner” election in this recent string of close elections.
Moreover, a shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in five of the last 12 presidential elections (and, of course, did elect the second-place candidate in 2000). In 1976, for example, Jimmy Carter led Gerald Ford by 1,682,970 votes nationwide; however, a shift of 3,687 votes in Hawaii and 5,559 votes in Ohio would have elected Ford. In 2004, President George W. Bush was ahead by about 3,500,000 popular votes nationwide on election night; however, the outcome of the election remained in doubt until Wednesday morning because it was not clear which candidate was going to win Ohio’s 20 electoral votes. In the end, Bush received 118,785 more popular votes than Kerry in Ohio, thus winning all of the state’s 20 electoral votes and ensuring his reelection. However, if 59,393 voters in Ohio had switched in 2004, Kerry would have ended up with 272 electoral votes (two more than the 270 required to be elected to the Presidency). This would have nullified Bush’s lead of 3,500,000 popular votes nationwide.
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