Election

 National Memo - Despite hundreds of articles in The New York Times and countless others throughout the media, and eight House Democratic lawmakers declaring Joe Biden should end his re-election campaign, the president’s performance at the June 27 debate has had “almost no impact” on voters’ preferences, a new Northeastern University study finds. “Led by David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern, the report indicates that the debate had little if any impact on people’s voting preference. Lazer hopes the report helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data,” reports Northeastern Global News, which is published by the university.

“Even the New York Times, which is usually better about this, talked about a very tiny shift that was totally insignificant statistically like it was evidence that it was a shift toward Trump after the debate,” Lazer says. “My hope is that reporters look at this and say, ‘Maybe we need to be careful in overinterpreting noise as actual signal.’”