Who won the Vice Presidential debate? On October 11, 2012, right after the VP debate, Fox News and CNN both posted open polls on their websites where anyone could go and cast their vote. (Both polls post disclaimers stating that their polls are "unscientific", meaning that they don't pretend to reliably reflect the opinions of any larger population, they simply reflect the opinions of those people who went to their websites and voted.) Here are the results:
Fox News Live Vote
VP Joe Biden: 11% (597 votes)
Rep. Paul Ryan: 89% (4,865 votes)
CNN Quick Vote
VP Joe Biden: 65% (6,973 votes)
Rep. Ryan: 35% (3,694 votes)
1. How many responses did each survey have?
a. Fox Live Vote had a total of 5,462 votes.
b. CNN Quick vote had a total of 10,667 votes.
2. Which poll has the smallest standard error?
Fox because it has the smallest number of votes.
CNN because it has the largest number of votes.
It's impossible to compute the standard error for any of these surveys because the people were NOT randomly chosen.
3a. What percent thought Ryan won in the Fox Live Vote Survey?
89% thought Ryan won in the Fox Live Vote Survey.
3b. What percent thought Ryan won in the CNN Quick Vote?
35% thought Ryan won in the CNN Quick Vote.
4. Why do you think Fox had a much smaller percentage voting for Biden than CNN?
Note: Fox is known as a popular website for Republicans and Biden is a Democrat.
Fox had a smaller percentage voting for Biden because Fox had fewer voters overall.
Fox had a smaller percentage voting for Biden because the people who go to the Fox site to vote are much more likely to be Republican than those who go to CNN.