Just to give some context on how numbers can be misleading, a 40 / 60 split is only 10 away from 50; however, even though that 10% margin is small, in reality it that means there are 50% more people in favor of something.

For every 40 people that don't want something, 60 people do.

For every 4 people that don't want something, 6 people do.

For every 2 people that don't want something, 3 people do.

3 divided by 2 is 1.5, or 150%.

So, in this 56.6% versus 43.4% split, 30.4% more people are in favor of this bill.

But percentages are still weird. So even my example can be misleading. It's all about how you interpret it. For instance, a 95 / 5 split would mean 19x as many people want one outcome. So the gap is 90% in the ratio, but 1800% more people are in the 95 camp. (1800% more implies 1800% over 100%, so 1900% total, or just 5 x 19)

Another way to look at the data of the 43/56 split.

If 10,000 people are against it, then 13,040 people are for it.

If 10,000 people are for it, then 6,960 people are against it.

Numbers are tricky like that

Honestly, I got defensive and wouldn't have written any of this if you hadn't said "what kind of math are you doing" like it wasn't t obvious what I did.

Good on you for this, seriously. I sounded like a dick, but was asking earnestly.

But is a zero-sum outcome, so the 13.2% differential is what's actually relevant.

That's not how you compare votes. It's not like the only other option for that 6.6% was to flip their vote to the opposite side. Abstaining is also a valid "vote", so to speak, and more likely for those who felt passionate enough to vote in favor of it in the first place if they weren't going to vote for it for some reason. If the number of people that make up that 6.6% abstained, i.e. just didn't vote at all, the measure would still have passed with the majority. The full 13.2% would have had to abstain from voting for the vote to have broken even. Which is why you take the difference between the vote percentages, not the difference to 50%.