Watch that inevitability narrative shift...
Finally somebody gets it.
It’s not “Chávez is comfortably ahead in the polls.” It’s “while Chávez has a big lead according to plainly biased pro-government pollsters, serious independent pollsters show startlingly incompatible results.”
Take it away, David Luhnow (behind the WSJ paywall, alas):
The split pits Venezuela’s two most respected polling firms against each other. In past elections, both have had similar results. But not this time around, pushing the issue of polling to the forefront of the election.
“There is something seriously wrong with the polling in Venezuela,” said Iñaki Sagarzazu, a Venezuelan political scientist who teaches at the University of Glasgow. “Someone is not doing their job well.”
One respected firm, Datanalisis, issued a poll on Tuesday showing Mr. Chávez with a 10-percentage-point lead over Mr. Capriles. The other respected firm, Consultores 21, issued its latest poll on Wednesday showing Mr. Capriles winning 49.9% to 45.7%. That is a 14-point swing between both polls.
…
While Venezuelan analysts discount pollsters seen as obviously biased, most people view Datanalisis and Consultores 21 as credible pollsters with a strong track record. Mr. Sagarzazu’s analysis shows Datanalisis has a slight pro-Chávez bias and Consultores 21 has a slight opposition bias.
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