Pardon The Interruption: Bloomberg On Pocahontas -- Gaining On Sanders -- June 6, 2019

I find political polling and political news reports fascinating.

The changes from week-to-week in the Democrat presidential polling has changed little since Biden announced, and any changes are statistically insignificant.

However, I assume potential donors and the candidates themselves are watching the trends very, very closely. So, it's fascinating to compare the numbers to the news stories.

This morning, a story from Bloomberg (BNN) on Pocahontas. Bloomberg headline: "Warren Gains On Sanders." (There was more to the headline but that was the hook.)

Since that was not the movie I was watching, I was curious. Here's the lede:

Elizabeth Warren has been climbing in the Democratic presidential contest by using a stream of policy blueprints and hours of selfies with voters to chip away at her immediate target: Bernie Sanders.

Warren’s path to directly challenging front-runner Joe Biden runs through Sanders, her main rival for progressive voters and the candidate who’s steadily held the No. 2 spot in most polls.

In fact, the numbers don't support the headline or the lede (here and here, both of those links are dynamic/changing, and thus after the next poll comes out, things will have changed).

Pocahontas came close to 10% (9.8%) a few weeks ago but has since dropped; most recently from 8.4% to 8.2% -- again, absolutely statistically insignificant, but the trend is important for a potential donor. Again, the Bloomberg lede said Pocahontas had been climbing in the presidential contest. Perhaps very, very early on that was true, but certainly not in the past month. Her numbers are statistically unchanged, but if anything, she is trending down.

The headline for the story: "Warren Gains On Sanders." Absolutely bogus from what I see.

On another note, the tea leaves suggest that Hillary is looking to be deus ex machina (or perhaps, better: diva ex machina) when she walks on stage before the second vote is called at a brokered DNC convention.

I love the second definition for diva: 

• a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please (typically used of a woman) 

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Ad Nauseum

You cannot fine a more liberal/socialist-leaning mainstream weekly sold in the US than The Economist. If you removed The Economist poll from the polling below, the average for Pocahontas drops from 8.17% to 7.4%.

To show just how much The Economist polling lacks any credibility, compare the Biden number from The Economist with the five other polls.