News talk 2013-12-20: Christie leads in Mississippi

This poll kind of surprised me and kind of didn’t. When you examine results like this rationally, you’ve got to stop and think, hey, Chris Christy has 15.72 percent, Ted Cruz has 15.58 percent, and Rand Paul has 14.45 percent.

But, wait! Let’s focus on this the “Mad Genius” way. Then I’ll tell you why this is actually bad for Christie.

There were only 710 polled, so let’s do some mathematics. What’s 15.72 percent of 710? It’s 111.612. So, we can assume that Christy got 112 votes. Huh? That’s 15.77 percent, so already we know there’s a disconnect between the supreme accuracy reported and what is possible, at least the way the poll was discribed.

Anyway, let’s skip forward and see what the poll means, if accurate. It means Christie isn’t doing that well in Mississippi, just the opposite of the seeming thrust of the article.

Why? It’s because both Cruz and Paul, as well as five others who received votes, are more conservative than Christie. Their votes are split. Together, they represent more than an 84 percent non-Christie vote.

Sure, you could say that about any of the other candidates, but Christie stands alone as a moderate, so it really is them against him. And “them” wins in a landslide. Yes, some of the other votes would peel off in a two-person, Christie vs. conservative poll. But I’m guessing Christie would be swamped. — MC