Update: Miramar Mayor Mosley’s Poll Questioned
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Miramar Mayor Lori Mosley is leading in her three-way race for re-election, her campaign contended Friday.
Lori Mosley
The campaign claims it has a poll proving the lead. But I and several readers of Browardbeat.com questioned the validity of the poll.
For instance, the poll claims that based on a statistically random sample of 1,030 likely voters, 39.1% said they would vote for Moseley.
Former City Commissioner Alexandra Davis trailed with 12.0%, while Commissioner Wayne Messam was running third at 11.42%.
The only problem is that a sample of 1,030 voters is almost impossible to obtain, especially since only 2,928 voted in the last mayor’s election.
Mosley’s campaign also didn’t release the methodology for the poll.
Mosley alleged overwhelming lead — she is polling better than her opponents combined — was in spite of the recent demographic changes in Miramar. The city has become a center for Caribbean Americans to settle. Once an overwhelmingly white community, Miramar was over 45 percent black in 2010 and is estimated to have a bigger number of black residents now.
First elected in 1999. Mosley is running for her fifth term
The poll was conducted January 13-15. The news release (reproduced in the comments section of this piece) does not state who conducted it.
The election is March 10.
Browardbeat.com is running the survey results because Mosley is using them in the campaign. It is a campaign issue.
Readers can decide for themselves whether the poll is valid. Personally, I highly doubt it.
I hope she didn’t pay a lot for the questionable survey.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
Prediction by election day:
Messam 45%
Moseley 39%
Davis 16%
February 6th, 2015 at 2:11 pm
How was the poll conducted? “Press 1 for Lori Mosley, press 2 for Wayne Messam, etc…” Not statistically accurate at all. When this information includes a quote from a reputable pollster, I’ll believe it. Next thing I know you’ll tell me Mosley is out knocking on doors!
February 6th, 2015 at 5:02 pm
Haters gonna hate especially when they are faced with facts that they don’t like. You can do all the predicting you want a fact will still be a fact. And the fact is that Moseley will win.
February 6th, 2015 at 5:11 pm
Miramar mafia: as a matter of fact, Mayor Moseley HAS knocked on my door!
February 6th, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Woah Buddy, what year is that photo from, 1986?
February 6th, 2015 at 7:23 pm
Buddy can you post the poll please so we can see it?
FROM BUDDY:
The poll questions nor the entire poll was not released. Nor was vital information about it, such as its methodology and who conducted it.
February 7th, 2015 at 8:07 am
Someone should note the overly aggressive sign placements by the Davis campaign. I would venture to guess at least half the businesses with Davis signs don’t know they are there. Does anyone else look at Alexandra Davis and see Miriam Oliphant? Seems desperate to hold office.
February 7th, 2015 at 10:32 am
So, are the pollsters spinning, or are they idiots?
A longtime incumbent with 39% of the vote is generally in deep, deep trouble, especially with that many undecideds.
And yes, I know there is no runoff.
No polls should be trusted without a complete description of the sampling procedures, a word-for-word transcript of the questions asked, the N, and the margin of error (which you could actually calculate from the N and the top line numbers in the poll, but still).
Kevin.
FROM BUDDY:
Very wise advice from Kevin.
February 7th, 2015 at 11:10 am
Buddy,
Is the poll and filling out of absentee ballots being done in the same room?
February 7th, 2015 at 1:43 pm
You said “according to a poll released by her campaign” and then you say no poll was released. That means that you risk being used by the Moseley campaign to misinform the public. For all we know there was no poll at all, or it was a poll taken only within her base, or the poll said something totally different.
Here’s the rule that journalists should follow. Don’t write about unreleased polls. Ever. Either release the entire document or you get no news coverage of it.
For all we know, there was no poll. Or the poll oversampled Moseley’s base, or the poll didn’t contain the results leaked. Who did the poll? What was the methodology? How do you even know there was a poll?
FROM BUDDY:
I prefer to let voters make their own decision about the validity of the poll, which was already being talked about in Miramar. My personal belief is that the poll is extremely questionable. For instance, a sample of 1,030 voters is almost impossible to obtain, especially since only 2,928 voted in the last mayor’s election.
Below is the news release from the campaign (My italics). You decide:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2015
Contact: Henry A. Rose 954-258-XXXX
POLL SHOWS LORI MOSELEY HAS COMMANDING LEAD OVER OPPONENTS
Over three days (January 13-15) a statistically random sample of 1,030 likely voters in the City of Miramar were polled about their views regarding the March 10 municipal election for the Mayor of Miramar.
According to the poll results, 39.1% of respondents said they would vote for Mayor Lori Moseley. Only 12.0% of respondents said they would vote for former Miramar City Commissioner Alexandra Davis and only 11.42% said they would vote for Miramar Commissioner Wayne Messam. This gives Moseley a commanding lead over both of her opponents in the race to be Mayor of Miramar.
Across all demographic groups (age, race and party affiliation) Moseley continues to have a very strong lead over both of her opponents.
For example, in the age group, 36-55, 36.24% of likely voters would vote for Moseley, compared to only 11.07% for Davis and only 10.07% for Messam.
“It has been my privilege to serve you and the City of Miramar over the last 20 years. My leadership has proven to be both fiscally responsible and visionary. Building a City where we can live, work, play, and prosper,” said Moseley.
###
Political advertisement paid for and approved by Lori C. Moseley for Mayor of Miramar
February 7th, 2015 at 5:42 pm
BTW, in polling (and I have done probably 150 of these in the past 20 years) the phrase “statistically-random sample” has no real meaning.
Either the sample of random or not.
And just for the record, assuming we want a 95% confidence interval, the margin of error for this question* is 1.96*SQRT((.391*.609)/1030), which equals ~ 2.98%
* 99% of journalists report that a “poll” has a margin of error. That is technically not true; each individual question has a MoE that may vary slightly from question to question since the MoE is a function not only of the N of the sample, but also the closeness of the divide in the question. Practically speaking, though, the N carries almost all of the weight in the calculation as you can see above assuming the N is large.
This poll is propaganda more than anything else. It may in the end turn out to be “right” but we’ll never know because (1) the election is not for another month and (2) we have no details.
Ugh. I hope Lori did not pay more than 2 or 3 grand for this.
FROM BUDDY:
Of course, its propaganda — spin. Doesn’t a campaign largely consist of propaganda.
The poll was being talked about in Miramar and being used to promote Mosley. The poll is highly questionable, in my opinion. But so are many of the allegations in municipal races.
That said, I added a qualifier in the piece today.
February 7th, 2015 at 5:59 pm
Buddy, journalists who don’t require that a poll be made public before they’re willing to cover that news take great risk of being used by campaigns and misinforming their readers. The fact that Moseley won’t release her poll only adds more suspicion.
Why does Lori Moseley fear disclosing her poll? Could it be it doesn’t really say what the press release suggests?
FROM BUDDY:
Any political reporter who claims they aren’t used by campaigns is not telling the truth. We are used all the time and know it. If we don’t write something because we believe we are being used, we run the risk of being accused of managing the news.
Voters should be allowed to make their own judgement. I think by the tone of these comments, they understand that Mosley’s poll is largely BS.
February 7th, 2015 at 10:52 pm
I love the fact some anonymous chowderhead thinks they can school up Buddy Nevins on the journalism trade.
Not Buddy’s first rodeo, he’s been around for quite some time, in fact he covered the breaking news of the Gutenberg press.
In dog years, he’s second only to Fields…
FROM BUDDY:
A very distant second to Fields.
February 8th, 2015 at 1:42 am
Wow, what a surprise! Have you ever seem a “poll” done by a candidate that did not favor said candidate?
This is a push poll, plain and simple.
The fact that Henry Rose’s name appears on that “release” is an indication that this “poll” was heavily skewed. (Yawn)
Buddy, I completely agree with Plain Language on this.
You got played.
FROM BUDDY:
I never got played. I knew from the start that the poll was questionable. I have done probably a hundred polling stories for the Sun-Sentinel and other Tribune papers over the years. I know a legitimate poll and campaign spin.
I thought I would write it straight without my opinion and let readers decide. They obviously have.
So there is no confusion where I stand, I have updated the story to reflect my view.
February 8th, 2015 at 11:22 am
An all the talk is about the poll? Buddy you are not sharing all the weird things going on many of the folks writing here have great thoughts and I appreciate them. How ever why not write stories or articles about whats really happening in Miramar? Like the 53 million dollar bond issue that 3/4 of the city knows zero about? Like the bubbling fountains in the sidewalk????? Or lets build a 8000 sq ft building to park Tactical Vehicles in???? Or how about the multimillion dollar canopy from a 4 day a week building to a hardly used CULTURIAL CENTER where the stage hands get paid more than the actors if and when a show occurs there??? A lot more to come. BTW Buddy ever gotten the flyer mailed out by CITIZEN ACTION now thats a story or article all by it self…
February 8th, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Buddy,
Good catch on the large sample size!
I did not even notice that except to see that it’s actually larger than some NATIONAL presidential polls (though one of the paradoxes of polling is that the smaller the Universe you are sampling, the larger the sample needs to be in proportion to the Universe, given some wonky math stuff I won’t go into here).
There is no way on God’s Green Earth that was done in three days with live callers (unless she has willing to blow $50k and nobody in Broward ever raises that kind of money), so this has to be a robo-poll, which means no cell phones.
I would like to know who actually did this poll. I’m not talking about who paid for it, but who actually executed it and ran the numbers and, most importantly, designed the sampling frame.
Kevin.
February 8th, 2015 at 3:19 pm
And you Chaz, are just a dog.
February 9th, 2015 at 10:57 am
What does race have to do with this?
February 9th, 2015 at 11:58 am
This is what this race is going to come down to: What do non-black male voters do? Are they going to go with Messam or Mosley (Davis has no chance in this race.) I think Caucasian men go with Mosley and Hispanics of both sexes break generally in favor or Mosley across the board giving her the win.
February 9th, 2015 at 12:58 pm
BREAKING: BRAND NEW SECOND MOSELEY POLL
——-
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 9, 2015
Contact: Henry A. Rose 954-258-XXXX
POLL SHOWS LORI MOSELEY HAS SUPER-DUPER COMMANDING LEAD OVER OPPONENTS
Over three days (February 7-9) a statistically random sample of 31,127 likely voters in the City of Miramar were polled about their views regarding the March 10 municipal election for the Mayor of Miramar.
According to the poll results, 116.7% of respondents said they would vote for Mayor Lori Moseley. Only -3.1% of respondents said they would vote for former Miramar City Commissioner Alexandra Davis and only -5.1% said they would vote for Miramar Commissioner Wayne Messam. This gives Moseley a commanding lead over both of her opponents in the race to be Mayor of Miramar.
“We successfully polled every person, living or dead, who ever cast a ballot in Miramar, and Lori Moseley scored over 100%. How can anyone possible beat that,” said Rose.
February 9th, 2015 at 5:44 pm
Isn’t Henry Rose, Moseley’s campaign manager?
February 17th, 2015 at 11:44 pm
Mayor Mosley is the best of the 3! You don’t fire the Chief Pilot because of amount of time on a job. You stay with her. thats what I say I back her 100% she runs a good ship in-spite of what she has to contend with….I look forward to working with her on oh so many issues like taking that Bond Issue apart forced down our throats by 3 commissioners of which 2 are running against her in this race. They are even bragging about it..after they hogtied the issue of a new police station for 2 extra months…