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The Bogeyman

Filed under: Imported

"Nader Keeps Race Hot" is the headline on the front page of today's Pioneer Press.

Then there's this lede, penned by reporter Bill Salisbury:

The "Nader Factor" appears to be keeping the presidential race competitive in Minnesota, according to a new Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll.

The problem? There's absolutely no evidence in the poll data to back up this assertion. With Nader in the race Kerry defeats Bush in Minnesota by 1 percentage point; without Nader his margin of victory climbs to 3 percentage points.

Either way, I don't think anyone could possibly argue that the race would no longer be "competitive" if Nader suddenly dropped out of the race.

But, more significantly, the margin of error on the poll is +/- 4 percentage points. In other words, either way--with or without Nader--the race is a statistical dead heat. Put another way, the presence of Nader on or off the ballot does not demonstrably change the poll results in any significant way whatsoever.

And then there's the overlooked matter of Nader's increasing irrelevance. In 2000, he took a fairly impressive 5 percent of the Minnesota vote. Now, according to this latest poll, Nader's garnering just 2 percent. Furthermore, there's little doubt that Nader's support will further erode as the election gets closer. In 2000, for instance, Nader was polling at 8 percent right up until election day. But in the final calculation, as it became clear that the contest in Minnesota was tight, many left-leaning voters held their noses and voted for Gore. (I should know; I was one of them.)

Why Salisbury chooses to obsess over Nader is beyond me. The poll numbers reveal a perfectly compelling storyline: Bush and Kerry locked in statistical dead heat.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 19, 2004 10:52 AM

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