Old polls
You may have heard about an old Republican poll the NRCC is pushing in which Kuhl leads Massa by a wide margin. F29th is all over this ploy (here; here). I guess I’d point out as well that the sample size is extremely small — 300 voters, which gives a margin of error of plus/minus 6 points for each candidate. In effect, that amounts to a 12 point margin of error on the gap between the two candidates. I’ve often wondered if campaigns sometimes run a bunch of small sample polls, then pick the one that is most favorable to them for press releases. I suspect that they do.
Sean Carroll has more on this.
Either that, or running a polling company is a sweet way to make a buck. Kuhl paid $16K for that poll, according to his January FEC report. That’s a lot of money for two days of work.