Jake Tapper explained how polling works to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I., Vt.) campaign manager Jeff Weaver in an amusing exchange Wednesday on CNN.
Hillary Clinton leads Sanders in unpledged superdelegates in their bids for the Democratic nomination. However, Sanders has rejected any talk of Clinton as the presumptive nominee until the superdelegates vote at July's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
A testy Weaver told Tapper during an interview that CNN's superdelegate count is inaccurate.
"One of the problems, Jake, is that the superdelegate counts that you have, they are a poll, and you don't design pledged delegate counts based on polls because the polling hasn't happened yet," Weaver said.
Confused, Tapper questioned, "they are not a poll?"
"You call people up and say, how are you voting? But they haven't voted. You could do a poll in California today and say, 'Hey how are you going to vote?' You don't count those," Weaver said.
Tapper proceeded to explain to Weaver the difference between statistical polling and calling an individual superdelegate to ask which Democratic candidate they are supporting.
"A poll is a statistical sampling of a thousand people to predict how a million people are going to vote. This is calling one after the other after the other, giving a roll call of individual superdelegates and they are going on the record saying, I will support Bernie Sanders or I will support Hillary Clinton. This isn't guesswork. This is what they have said they are going to do," Tapper said.
"Right, but they are not obligated to do that until they get to the convention," Weaver said.