Passage Summary: A political commentator claims that because elections are incredibly close, the parties must be world's apart on what they believe.

Conclusion: The two major political parties in the city have developed a deep ideological divide.

Reasoning: In the last four elections, the margin of victory between the two parties was consistently less than 1 percent.

Analysis: This pundit is confusing the 'closeness of the race' with the 'distance between the platforms.' A very slim margin of victory simply means the voters are evenly split; it doesn't mean the parties are ideologically far apart. In fact, often the opposite is true—parties move toward the center and become very similar to capture that last 1% of voters. The flaw is assuming that a statistical tie in popularity implies a radical difference in policy.