Every pollster is entitled to a bad cycle now and again -- and Rasmussen has had some good cycles in the past. But their polling took a major downturn this year.
Whovian - so you do not even look at the factual information? You dismiss it out of hand because you do not like the source?
What is there about proven bias in a pollster than you consider funny? Or is bias in a pollster acceptable as long as it is bias in your direction?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Considering how far left the KOS is, certainly I look at anything sourced there as suspect. But, as you provided no link, nothing to show where the information came from, I have to conclude you're trying to hide something. Perhaps the liberal bent in the guys piece?
You also failed to include any mention of any other pollsters who were off. An unbiased piece would not focus only on Rass... they would have included ANY pollster that was off.
You, Singiser and Kos have an obvious agenda. Revel in your partisan hackery my friend.
Inquiring minds want to know.
I have to conclude you're trying to hide something.
from Whovian
Oh
my
gawd!
Instead of attacking the messenger why don't you examine the article itself and tell us what is factually wrong with the information presented?
the article is filled with actual hard numbers from Rasmussen polls and others. It would be nice to deal with the actual numbers and what they mean rather than an ad hominem attack on the publisher or writer.
If gallup release a poll that's off by almost 50 points I promise you I'll post a link to it and you can call them liberals all you want, lol.
The House of Ras overestimated the margins in the race to the advantage of the GOP in 46 out of those 57 contests (81%).
On October 20th, they reported to a shocked America that the GOP wave had even reached the impenetrable longtime Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye. The House of Ras had the Hawaii Senate race as a 13-point race, with the man that has represented Hawaii since statehood up only 53-40. On Election Day, of course, Inouye won by...53 points (75-22).
So, looking at unique races, we get down to 57 contests. The House of Ras overestimated the margins in the race to the advantage of the GOP in 46 out of those 57 contests (81%). In an ideal world, of course, a pollster would get their numbers wrong pretty evenly.
Clearly, one of the consequences of last night's midterms is that a number of changes are going to come to America. In the insular world of the political press, it is high time for one long overdue change: the ability to recognize Rasmussen for what it is. And this cycle proved is that Rasmussen is a partisan outfit that does not necessarily produce great results, and puts its thumb AND forefinger on the scale for its favored party.
DailyKos?
REALLY?
:2funny::2funny::2funny::2funny:
Yes, you do.I really have to learn how the game is played by some here . For some ideologically driven posters it seems to be a pissing contest with the attitude of some (not all) being "oh yeah!!!!! your guys are worse than mine". In this case it seems to also be a bit of "sure we ran you over with our SUV - but we didn't mean to do it - at least the first time".
Quite amusing that this "Steve Singiser" highlights this as proof of inaccuracy. The poll was apparently taken over two weeks before the election. Do you know how popular the guy was in middle of March? Steve Singiser sure doesn't. Nobody else bothered to poll during that time or anytime thereafter.Or how about this
How does that sit with you knowing that the media presents Ras poll numbers as valid news and evidence of political trends?On October 20th, they reported to a shocked America that the GOP wave had even reached the impenetrable longtime Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye. The House of Ras had the Hawaii Senate race as a 13-point race, with the man that has represented Hawaii since statehood up only 53-40. On Election Day, of course, Inouye won by...53 points (75-22).
Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly - NYTimes.com
Rasmussen’s polls have come under heavy criticism throughout this election cycle, including from FiveThirtyEight. We have critiqued the firm for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single, 4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone rather than using a random selection process; does not call cellphones; does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys. These are cost-saving measures which contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples.
Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious since party identification (unlike characteristics like age and gender) is often quite fluid.
Criticism
TIME has described Rasmussen Reports as a "conservative-leaning polling group".[16] The Center For Public Integrity has pointed out that Scott Rasmussen was a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign.[17] According to Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com, while there are no apparent records of Scott Rasmussen or Rasmussen Reports making contributions to political candidates in recent years and its public election polls are generally regarded as reliable, "some observers have questioned its issue-based polling, which frequently tends to elicit responses that are more conservative than those found on other national surveys."[18]
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo commented on their reliability in a February 2009 article:[19][20]
The toplines tend to be a bit toward the Republican side of the spectrum, compared to the average of other polls. But if you factor that in they're pretty reliable. And the frequency that Rasmussen is able to turn them around – because they're based on robocalls – gives them added value in terms of teasing out trends. But the qualitative questions, in terms of their phrasing and so forth, are frequently skewed to give answers friendly toward GOP or conservative viewpoints. All of which is to say that his numbers are valuable. But they need to be read with that bias in mind.
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com observed that at the end of the 2010 general election cycle, Rasmussen Polls consistently were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points. [21]
I did a quick check on the accuracy of polls from the firm Rasmussen Reports, which came under heavy criticism this year — including from FiveThirtyEight — because its polls showed a strong lean toward Republican candidates. Indeed, Rasmussen polls quite consistently turned out to overstate the standing of Republicans tonight. Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points. ....it appears as though the worst poll of the political cycle will be the Rasmussen Reports survey of Hawaii, which had the incumbent Daniel Inoyue defeating Cam Cavasso by just 13 points. Mr. Inouye is ahead by 55 points right now. If Mr. Inouye’s margin holds, the 42-point error would be by far the worst general election poll in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls since 1998; the previous record was 29 points.
Rasmussen has received criticism over the wording in its polls.[22][unreliable source?] Examples of Rasmussen's questions with wording issues include:
Agree or Disagree: "Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. He says jump, and they say how high."[23]
Do you favor or oppose the economic recovery package proposed by Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats?[24]
Suppose that Democrats agreed on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Should the Democrats pass that bill or should they change the bill to win support from a reasonable number of Republicans?[25]
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement... it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money?[25][unreliable source?]
Some of Rasmussen polls have contained two different weights for questions, depending on the party of the statesman in the question.[26][unreliable source?] In one example, the first question asks for a job rating for Tim Pawlenty, a Republican governor, using an approve/disapprove scale. The next question asks for the way that Al Franken, a Democratic senator, is performing his role, but uses a Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor scale. Nick Panagakis of Pollster.com has pointed out that, when using the latter scale, "approval is often reported by combining the top two and bottom two scores", including the "fair" score as a "disapproval" vote.[27]
According to Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who co-developed Pollster.com,[28] “He [Rasmussen] polls less favorably for Democrats, and that’s why he’s become a lightning rod." Franklin also said: "It’s clear that his results are typically more Republican than the other person’s results.”[29]
I was really hoping that Liberals wouldn't be cry babies about getting their asses handed to them.
apdst
How is pointing out the weaknesses and inaccuracies of Rasmussen polls crying about the election results? You are confusing two different things.
Of the roughly 100 polls released by Rasmussen or its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research in the final 21 days of the campaign, roughly 70 to 75 percent overestimated the performance of Republican candidates, and on average they were biased against Democrats by 3 to 4 points. ....it appears as though the worst poll of the political cycle will be the Rasmussen Reports survey of Hawaii, which had the incumbent Daniel Inoyue defeating Cam Cavasso by just 13 points. Mr. Inouye is ahead by 55 points right now. If Mr. Inouye’s margin holds, the 42-point error would be by far the worst general election poll in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls since 1998; the previous record was 29 points.
did you not read this???
Every pollster is entitled to a bad cycle now and again -- and Rasmussen has had some good cycles in the past. But their polling took a major downturn this year.
The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.
Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.
If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state — rather than including all polls within the three-week interval — it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.
The discrepancies between Rasmussen Reports polls and those issued by other companies were apparent from virtually the first day that Barack Obama took office. Rasmussen showed Barack Obama’s disapproval rating at 36 percent, for instance, just a week after his inauguration, at a point when no other pollster had that figure higher than 20 percent.
Rasmussen Reports has rarely provided substantive responses to criticisms about its methodology. At one point, Scott Rasmussen, president of the company, suggested that the differences it showed were due to its use of a likely voter model. A FiveThirtyEight analysis, however, revealed that its bias was at least as strong in polls conducted among all adults, before any model of voting likelihood had been applied.
Some of the criticisms have focused on the fact that Mr. Rasmussen is himself a conservative — the same direction in which his polls have generally leaned — although he identifies as an independent rather than Republican. In our view, that is somewhat beside the point. What matters, rather, is that the methodological shortcuts that the firm takes may now be causing it to pay a price in terms of the reliability of its polling.
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