Knight Ridder has recently released a series of polls in the so-called battleground states conducted by Mason-Dixon.
The numbers are fairly close in most of them. Unfortunately, KR has an article and accompanying graphic- and undoubtedly a wire version of both which will run in papers across the country tomorrow morning which runs contrary to their polling data.
They show a Bush lead in eleven of the thirteen states for which they're releasing data. Unfortunately, they also have state-by-state breakdowns which don't bear this out- they show a 9-4 split, with both Pennsylvania and Minnesota in the Kerry column, but reported Bush in the overview.
It's important we act quickly to bring this to their attention- news sections, especially on the East Coast will be "going to bed" fairly shortly, and this needs to be corrected before that happens.
Here's the letter I sent the webmaster address from their website
Looking at the "battleground" state polling just released, there seems to be a significant difference between the summary posted on the website (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/election2004/polls/9714974.htm), the accompanying graphic (http://www.realcities.com/images/realcities/realcities/9715/94387441600.gif), and the actual results released on other pages.
The Minnesota results as released on the aforementioned page and graphic show a 46-44 Bush lead, but the results reported from Minnesota at http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/election2004/polls/9714028.htm show a 46-44 Kerry advantage.
Similarly, the Pennsylvania numbers are switched between the two, with the page http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/election2004/polls/9713733.htm showing a 45-44 Kerry advantage.
These are minor errors, but newspapers all over the nation will carry the article and graphic, and the erroneous 11-2 story looks much more harshly on Senators Kerry and Edwards than the 9-4 split the actual numbers show. It's important that this story be corrected immediately to make the deadlines for Tuesday morning papers across the nation- and morning papers on the East Coast will be going to bed shortly.