dead heat, too close to call, margin of error, muddled, hurtle

Muddled Democratic Race Hurtles to New Hampshire

By JONATHAN MARTIN and REID J. EPSTEIN

A remarkable level of discord enveloped the start of the nominating process as results from Iowa’s troubled caucuses showed Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in a dead heat.

An independent has not won a state in a general election since 1968. That may change with Evan McMullin

The rise of Evan McMullin, an independent candidate in a deep-red state

A poll puts the independent candidate in a dead heat with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

ECONOMIST.COM

Haruki Murakami's Nobel Prize Odds Show He's A Favorite, But The Competition Is Too Close To Call
We're less than one week away from learning who will win the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, but bookmakers — yes, people bet on this — have…


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The polling industry came under fire for predicting a virtual dead heat when the Conservatives ultimately went on to outpoll Labour by 36.9% to 30.4%.



2011
DPP presidential candidate Tsai, 54, has benefited from the growing dissatisfaction among Taiwanese voters, with the most recent polls showing a statistical dead heat. Ma would get 44 percent of votes to Tsai's 39 percent, the TVBS survey of 1,158 adults conducted June 16 to 20 showed. It had a 2.9 percentage point margin of error.



muddled
adjective
1 Things that are muddled are badly organized:
He left his clothes in a muddled pile in the corner.

2 A person who is muddled is confused:
He became increasingly muddled as he grew older.


hurtle 
verb [I usually + adverb or preposition]
to move very fast, especially in what seems a dangerous way:
The truck came hurtling towards us.
The explosion sent pieces of metal and glass hurtling through the air.



dead heat

n.

1. Sports. A race in which two or more contestants compete evenly or finish at the same time.
2. A political campaign or other contest that is so close that it is impossible to predict the winner.

Resulting in too narrow a margin to make a decision, as in That ball didn't miss by much but it was too close to call, or The election was too close to call, so they decided to have a runoff. This expression comes from sports, where call has signified "a judgment" since the mid-1600s. In the 1960s it began to be applied to pre-election polls and then to the outcome of elections.