Wow! Romney's Catching Up!

[barn32]

Or is he...

Obama 284: Romney 241




Minus the Rasmussen Polls:

Obama 342: Romney 196


Rasmussen and Bias

After the 2010 elections, the New York Times statistics wizard, Nate Silver, analyzed the polls produced by various polling organizations, including Rasmussen Reports, which is the house pollster for Fox News. Silver's analysis covered only polls taken during the final three weeks of the campaign and compared them to the actual election results. For polls taken much earlier, say in June, no one knows what the true sentiment of the electorate was, so there is no way to tell if the polls were accurate or not. Also, any pollster deliberately falsifying the results for partisan advantage would be advised to reduce the bias as the election neared. After all, no one can tell if a June poll is accurate but everyone can tell if a poll released the day before the election is accurate.

Silver analyzed 105 polls released by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, for Senate and gubernatorial races in numerous states across the country. The bottom line is that on average, Rasmussen's polls were off by 5.8% with a bias of 3.9% in favor of the Republican candidates.

There is much to criticize about Rasmussen's methods. All polls are conducted within a 4-hour window, the person who answers the phone (even a child) is sampled, phones that are not answered are not called back, and much more. All of Rasmussen's polls are done by computer; live interviewers are never used. However, other firms that do robopolling such as SurveyUSA and PPP get much more accurate results with no bias, so the problem is not the robopolling per se.

Just to look at one methodological issue, if no one answers the phone, Rasmussen picks a different random phone number instead of calling back two, three, four or more times as other pollsters do. Why does this matter? Because 20-somethings (who skew Democratic) are often out, whereas 60-somethings (who skew Republican) are often in. By not being persistent in finally getting through to a randomly chosen phone number, the sample is inherently biased towards Republicans because they are easier to reach. This may not have been intentional but it is understandable if you want to finish your survey in 4 hours. Nevertheless, cutting corners in the name of speed and cost don't improve accuracy.

Unlike companies like Strategic Vision, which most likely made up the data (but not very well) and also Research 2000, which probably did as well, no one is suggesting that Rasmussen is making up numbers without actually doing polling. There are many reports of people called by Rasmussen. The problem with Rasmussen is most likely its model of the electorate. Very briefly, if a pollster believes that in a certain state, say, 40% of the voters are Republicans and the actual survey just happens to turn up 35% Republicans, each Republican interviewed will be given a weight of 40/35 to correct for the undersampling of Republicans. All pollsters do this to correct for under- or oversampling by party, gender, age, race, income, and other factors. This is not only legitimate, but necessary with the small samples all the pollsters use. The issue here is whether Rasmussen's model of the electorate has more Republicans in it than in reality there are (not to mention whether this is accidental or deliberate).

You can read more about Silver's analysis here and here.

The conclusion is that some people do not believe in Rasmussen's polls any more. For these people, we have produced this page, which is generated exactly the same way as the main page and the Senate page, except that first all the Rasmussen polls are temporarily removed from the database. To see if this page is more accurate than the main page and Senate page, please check back on Nov. 7, 2012.


Link

[Actor]

I notice that both maps have PA as probably Obama. I wonder if the pollsters are asking "do you have a valid photo ID?"

[Actor]

Have you noticed that MSNBC is no longer saying "If Obama wins?" They're saying "When Obama wins."

[Boris]

Originally Posted by barn32

The conclusion is that some people do not believe in Rasmussen's polls any more. For these people, we have produced this page, which is generated exactly the same way as the main page and the Senate page, except that first all the Rasmussen polls are temporarily removed from the database. To see if this page is more accurate than the main page and Senate page, please check back on Nov. 7, 2012.

Yeah, Rasmussen has a nasty habit of polling likely voters. But keep on believing Barn. 2010 was an optical illusion. This Nov it will return to Democrat rainbows and unicorns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports

2008
According to Politico, "Rasmussen’s final poll of the 2008 general election — showing Obama defeating Arizona Sen. John McCain 52 percent to 46 percent — closely mirrored the election’s outcome."[39] In reference to the 2008 presidential election, a Talking Points Memo article said, "Rasmussen's final polls had Obama ahead 52%-46%, which was nearly identical to Obama's final margin of 53%-46%, and made him one of the most accurate pollsters out there."[40]
Congressional and gubernatorial
In the 2009 New Jersey gubernatorial race, Rasmussen Reports' final poll predicted that Chris Christie would beat Jon Corzine by a margin of 3 points. Christie won the race with a spread of 4.3 points.[41]
In December 2009, Alan Abramowitz wrote that if Rasmussen's data was accurate, Republicans would gain 62 seats in the House during the 2010 midterm elections.[42] In a column written the week before the 2010 midterm elections, Rasmussen stated his belief that Republicans would gain at least 55 seats in the House and end up with 48 or 49 Senate seats.[43] Republicans ended up gaining 63 seats in the House, and coming away with 47 Senate seats.[44]
In 2010, Rasmussen Reports was the first to show Republican Scott Brown had a chance to defeat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Just after Brown's upset win, Ben Smith at Politico reported, "The overwhelming conventional wisdom in both parties until a Rasmussen poll showed the race in single digits in early January was that Martha Coakley was a lock. (It's hard to recall a single poll changing the mood of a race quite that dramatically.)"[45] A study by Boston University and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism about how the Massachusetts Senate race was covered in the media concluded, "...Rasmussen Report’s poll that showed the overwhelming Republican underdog, Scott Brown, climbing to within single digits (nine points) of Martha Coakley. That poll, perhaps more than anything else, signaled that a possible upset was brewing and galvanized both the media and political worlds."[46] The New York Times Magazine opened a March 14 cover story with a scene highlighting the impact of that poll in an internal White House meeting involving President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

[lamboguy]

when this campaign first started, the democrat was -$250-$100. now $200-$100. the trend so far has been to the Republican. the way i read this thing, the election is not over until either the Republican is close to even money, or the Democrat is -$300-$100. for a sitting president this isn't a beg lead with any stretch of the imagination

[ArlJim78]

the deeper the blue, the higher the degree of disfunction. funny how that works. getting nervous yet barn32? you should be, this year will be a replay of 2010 only the red wave will be even larger.

[Valuist]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

the deeper the blue, the higher the degree of disfunction. funny how that works. getting nervous yet barn32? you should be, this year will be a replay of 2010 only the red wave will be even larger.

Exactly. California, New York and Illinois all blue. All with LOTS of problems.

That DeNiro commercial for NY cracks me up.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Valuist

That DeNiro commercial for NY cracks me up.

Thank you. I've been trying to place that voice ever since that commercial came out.

[JustRalph]

Watching commercials here in Texas advocating moving "your business" to New York.

Yeah right. Lots of East coasters down here though

[lsbets]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Watching commercials here in Texas advocating moving "your business" to New York.

Yeah right. Lots of East coasters down here though

So you're here now? Shoot me a PM, where'd you end up?

[lsbets]

I always get a kick out of this bash Rasmussen thing. He has had the most accurate polls of anyone in presidential elections, including in 2008:

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academ...20election.pdf

[lsbets]

The one race he really blew was 200, when he had Gore up by 9. Yep, he's biased!

[Tom]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Watching commercials here in Texas advocating moving "your business" to New York.

Not that easy, the only lanes of our roads that we maintain are the ones leading OUT of the state. They get much more use.

[PaceAdvantage]

I say we just cancel the election. That should make Democrats and the far-left very happy...and to borrow from my good friend "Actor"...very Hitleresque...

[lsbets]

And today Silver has a column talking about how bad the Gallup poll is. A few months ago Rasmussen sucked because Rasmussen didn't have a big Obama lead. Now Gallup sucks because they have a big Romney lead.

Silver got lucky once and is nothing but an incredibly biased hack. But I do find it funny that the obamabots now need to put their faith in the Rasmussen polls.