During an August 18 discussion on FOX News Channel's FOX & Friends about the impact the misleading ad campaign sponsored by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth could have on Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) efforts to win undecided voters, FOX News Channel senior judicial analyst and frequent guest co-host Andrew P. Napolitano pointed to dubious polling data, which he said showed “that 20 percent of the undecideds say they're looking critically at Senator Kerry because the vets are saying” Kerry lied about his service in Vietnam. Meanwhile, on the same show, FOX & Friends co-host E.D. Hill repeated one of the ad's misrepresentations.

Napolitano cited a study by HCD Research/Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, which was conducted online and surveyed a sample of just 371 non-party-affiliated voters (the New York Post, which published an article about the study the same morning, incorrectly reported a sample size of 1,275 participants). But the particular questions gauging the reactions of those supporting Kerry drew from a subset of only 62 people -- those who were “definitely,” “most likely,” or “leaning towards voting for John Kerry.”

According to the poll:

[B]efore the ad, 41.94% of Independents intending to vote for Kerry felt that they would “definitely” vote for him; 37.10% felt “most like” to vote for him; 20.97% were 'leaning' towards him; and none were “not sure.”

Those levels of commitment changed markedly after viewing the Swift Boat ad. Independents “definitely” voting for Kerry dropped to 29.03%. Those “most likely” to vote for him were relatively unchanged at 33.87%. Those “leaning” towards Kerry dropped to 9.68%. Finally, Independents were “not sure” their initial choice of Kerry increased substantially to 27.42%.

Here's the problem with a total sample size of 62. A drop from 41.94 percent (carrying the percentage out to two decimal places is an obvious grasp at the appearance of scientific precision that is nonexistent in a sample this low) to 29.03 percent corresponds to a drop from 26 “definites” for Kerry to 18, or a difference of 8 people. The drop from 20.97 percent to 9.68 percent among the “leaners” is a move from 13 people to 6. Those are among the purported “marked” changes that the poll identified.

Hill followed Napolitano's observations of the polling data with her own feelings about the ad's impact:

HILL: I don't know how I feel about this. I started out with, look, John Kerry got three Purple Hearts, why not say, “Listen, because of my experience in the battlefield, I'm fit to be commander-in-chief”? But if you run on that as the reason you should be elected, if there are men, including the man who replaced him on that swift boat and the men who served with him on that swift boat that say he wasn't so brave there, he didn't deserve those medals, does that have the right to come out also? If you're going to base your presidency run on that --

In the ad, members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claim that they “served with John Kerry.” Hill's suggestion that the anti-Kerry veterans are “the men who served with him on that swift boat” echoed this false claim. As Media Matters for America has noted, all but one of the members of then-Lieutenant Kerry's swift boat crews still living support his candidacy and dispute Swift Boat Veterans' charges that Kerry's medals were undeserved.