Assuming the “margin of error” is one sigma, that’s a 75% probability of Obama winning, which hardly qualifies as “much higher” IMO.
EDIT: Retracted. If, as James_K says, the margin of error is 1.96 sigma, that’s a 90% probability for Obama.
The normal margin of error on a political opinion poll would be 1.96 sigma—a 95% confidence interval (that’s how you’d get a margin of error of just over 3 percentage points on a poll of 1000 people.
Assuming the “margin of error” is one sigma, that’s a 75% probability of Obama winning, which hardly qualifies as “much higher” IMO.
EDIT: Retracted. If, as James_K says, the margin of error is 1.96 sigma, that’s a 90% probability for Obama.
The normal margin of error on a political opinion poll would be 1.96 sigma—a 95% confidence interval (that’s how you’d get a margin of error of just over 3 percentage points on a poll of 1000 people.