Practical Guidance on Calculating Sampling Error in Election Polls

Abstract

In election poll results, the proportions favoring candidates and the survey sampling error are usually reported. However, it is hard to assess if the gap between any two candidates is statistically significant or not based on this information. This article provides an alternative measurement of sampling error for this assessment purpose. We detail the calculation steps in STATA and SPSS programs to handle polls based on simple random sampling and also polls based on more complicated designs.