20 June 2018 — 0824 mdt

Immigration honk and wave, Zinke, Gravis poll

Immigration honk and wave. If you disapprove of tearing immigrant children away from their parents who crossed the border illegally, you can make your displeasure known publicly this afternoon at 1700 at Depot Park in Kalispell. Love Lives Here in the Flathead is sponsoring the event, and everyone is welcome. A large crowd would send the right message to our blessing in Congress. Come if you can. It will be fun and you’ll meet some nice people.

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Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior. And, according to Politico, real estate developer in Whitefish. Zinke has a remarkable talent for ingratiating himself with rich men, and he seems to enjoy living on the edge and taking risks (perhaps that’s why he was a Navy Seal). So far, he’s avoided falling off the edge, but the bolder he becomes, the more likely he’ll take a fall. Watch your step, Mr. Secretary.

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A Gravis poll conducted last week reports Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is leading Republican Matt Rosendale 51 to 44 percent, with five percent undecided. There’s no mention of Libertarian candidate Rick Breckenridge or Green Party nominee Steve Kelly.

In the election for the U.S. House, Democrat Kathleen Williams is leading incumbent Republican Greg Gianforte 49 to 43 percent with eight percent undecided. Again, no mention of the Libertarian candidate, Elinor Swanson, or the Green candidate, Doug Campbell.

The margin of error for the 469 person sample is 4.9 percent. That’s a standard statistic that applies only to the sample size. More errors can be introduced by mistakes in weighting the sample to compensate for how the sample differs from the population. For example, Gravis’ sample was 43 percent college graduates, but only 30–31 percent of Montana’s adult population has a bachelors or higher degree.

The American Research Group has a handy online ballot lead calculator that computes the probability that Smith is leading Jones. This is a more useful statistic than the margin of error.

As more polls are released, we’ll have a better idea whether this poll was an outlier or close to the money. Meanwhile, Democrats will and should find the poll encouraging.