It’s a fine sample size. That’s a normal national poll. A poll of 1,000 people has a margin of error (from random sampling) of 3%. There are other errors than random chance that could bias a poll, but random chance is what sampling size is generally managing.
The more you look for it the more you recognize that a lot of the people in charge of politics (and business for that matter) aren’t smart or knowledgeable or even master strategists, they’re just the sort of person who skirt through life through some combination of charisma and utter willingness to say whatever it takes to please the people who can advance their career.
Like you expect the dumb shit they say to be an act by a keen mind who understands politics deeply and is manipulating the public into advancing their interests, but they’re often just fucking idiots with no principles who whenever they’ve been stymied due to their idiocy just let it slide off their back and move on to a new path with utmost confidence.
Jill Stein isn’t going to slink away into the darkness after a public demonstration of political ignorance for a lady whose whole public persona is supposed to be about politics, she’s just going to forget about it and keep the scam going. Not knowing the basics of government isn’t going to stop her from saying she knows how to fix the problems with government. Not being on the ballot in states is unimportant for whether it sounds good to her in the moment to say they can win in all 50 states. They’re all just unimportant “facts” and you can just keep talking and most people will forget or not know that you’re an idiot.