I told you that Mitch McConnell – Amy McGrath poll was totally out of whack
Earlier this week a new poll from Morning Consult set off a furor because it showed Mitch McConnell holding a whopping seventeen point lead over Democratic candidate Amy McGrath. At the time, Palmer Report pointed out that this was very likely an outlier poll, and that it should be ignored until we got additional polling data from the Kentucky race, so a proper polling average could form.
Sure enough, now a new Quinnipiac polls says that Amy McGrath is just five points behind Mitch McConnell. So what’s suddenly changed? Nothing at all. It’s just that different polling outlets use different methodologies, and so they can sometimes come up with widely varying results. It’s why you never look at just one poll out of context, and why you always look at the polling averages.
So how does the Kentucky race really stand? When all you have to work with are a seventeen point poll and a five point poll, it still doesn’t tell you much – except that at least one of these polls is wildly incorrect. Based on where this race was polling during the latter stages of the primary season, we’d guess it’s a high single digit margin. Give us a couple more new polls in the Kentucky race, and we can tell you what’s really going on here.
But no one should have taken that seventeen point poll seriously. That was clear even before today’s new polling data arrived. Any news outlets that hyped the seventeen point poll are either unfamiliar with how polling works, or they were just trying to shock you for the sake of ratings.
