Misdirection Or Is Ra$mu$$en Slowly Preparing The Faithful-Obama (D) 48% Romney ($) 46%

[DemocratSinceBirth]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

[MADem]

1. Rasmussen has been skewered lately for posting crap polling results.

The argument is that he weights his GOP results too heavily and the Dem ones too lightly. His performance in past contests has been held up as proof of his sloppiness and/or magical thinking.

[Grateful for Hope]

2. I think his results speak more to his bias.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. His Devotees Will Tell You He Was "The Most Accurate Pollster In 2008"

Which is technically correct since his final pre election poll aligned up best with the actual results. Of course, that misses the entire point of his subterfuge which is try to provide an alternative narrative to influence the race. If the alternative narrative fails then he produces the "real" results to maintain his viability to try to influence the race in the next election.

[MADem]

6. Yep--it's good he's been outed for the shill he is! nt

[bluestate10]

3. Rasmussen gives a 4-6% bias to the republican.

Obama is likely ahead by as many as 8 percentage points.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. I Try To Be Self Reflective And Honest When I Look At A Poll Lest I Become The Unskewed Poll Guy*

If you look at all the polls Obama is probably up by six to eight among rvs and four to five among lvs. It's the latter group we need to watch.




* And just not willy nilly criticize a poll because it's bad for my guy. If I am going to criticize a poll I'm going to bring more than there are too many Republicans in it to my argument. I was looking at a Suffolk Poll which had a two point lead for the pres in Virginia . I looked at the internals and it had 15% less African Americans, 25% less Latinos, and 3% more whites. I would like to know the pollster's justification for those numbers. Did members of those groups tell you they are less likely to vote?

I think I will e-mail the person who conducted the poll.

[Honeycombe8]

7. Here ya go: poll accuracy.

Here's a shocker.


Poll Accuracy in the 2008 Presidential Election
—Initial Report, November 5, 2008—
Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
Fordham University
(snip)

For all the derision directed toward pre-election polling, the final poll estimates were not
far off from the actual nationwide voteshares for the two candidates. On average, preelection
polls from 23 public polling organizations projected a Democratic advantage of
7.52 percentage points on Election Day, which is only about 1.37 percentage points away
from the current estimate of a 6.15-point Obama margin in the national popular vote.

(snip)

The following list ranks the 23 organizations by the accuracy of their final, national preelection
polls (as reported on pollster.com).
1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline [phone])*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

But all the polls were close to the election results, it said.

[NotThisTime]

8. Well if accurate, at least the swing states are nowhere near just a 2 point lead

Thank the electoral college this time around....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. But all the polls were close to the election results, it said.

Everything else is commentary...


And pollsters have a good years and bad years...In 96 Zogby predicted Clinton's relatively modest 49%-41% defeat of Bob Dole when other pollster were showing a Clinton double digit blow out and in 00 Zogby showed a modest 2% Gore victory when most pollsters were showing a modest 2% Bush victory...

Then Zogby screwed up so many predictions (polls) you hardly see him mentioned any more...

[Honeycombe8]

10. True. I like to look at rcp and pollster.com averages of all the polls,

as well as the TREND. The polls starting in September are more accurate, I've read, which makes sense. I've read that election results are not far off from September polls.

But especially October polls should be telling. An October surprise can happen.

Something happened with Zogby, as I recall. Dishonesty or something revealed, maybe? But for sure, they became really off in their polling.

Obama, as an avg of all the polls (per Real Clear Politics) was ahead of Romney by 3.9% a week ago. Then he was ahead by 4%. Starting a day or 2 ago, he was ahead by 4.1%. And he's ahead in ALL the polls, to some degree. All those things taken together show a better picture than one poll, I think.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. There Was Never Clear Deception Found In Zogby Polls, Just A Lot Of Crappy Results

Just google Zogby if you like. However, Nate Sliver at 538 suggested, you have to be careful when you accuse someone of fraud, that Research 2000 and Strategic Advantage literally just made up the numbers. Research 2000 was sued by Daly Kos who they performed polls for and is out of business and Strategic Advantage is out of the polling business. I haven't seen one of their polls in ages.