The Rasmussen Gamble

One thing that people have noticed is how many polls differ from Rasmussen. While most polls show modest leads for Obama, and many Democratic Senators, Rassmussen has been polling just the opposite. This has led people to accuse Rasmussen of being a GOP operative. However, the truth lies, not in party affiliation, but methodology. Unlike most pollsters, which use a "registered voter" model, Rasmussen uses a "likely voter" model. Most pollsters say using likely voters this far out from an election will skew the results, as undecideds have not yet decided. But, this year is not like every other year. There are few undecideds left, which makes the methodology from Rasmussen more credible. And, if Rasmussen's gamble in using the likely voter model this early in the year turns out to be correct, this portends trouble for the Democrats. Worst case scenario for them, if this methodology turns out to be accurate, is the defeat of Obama and a Republican Senate takeover. This would be more of a shock wave to the Dems than 2010 was, as the GOP will then control the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

Discussion?

If people think Rasmussen is biased, then they have no idea what bias is.

Critics have to be teasing, saying Rasmussen WISHES it belonged to the GOP establishment.

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial (2010) 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.

Nor did it make much difference whether the polls were branded as Rasmussen Reports surveys, or instead, were commissioned for Fox News by its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research. (Both sets of surveys used an essentially identical methodology.) Polls branded as Rasmussen Reports missed by an average of 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias. The polls it commissioned on behalf of Fox News had a 5.1 point error, and a 3.6 point bias.

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.

Rasmussen’s polls — after a poor debut in 2000 in which they picked the wrong winner in 7 key states in that year’s Presidential race — nevertheless had performed quite strongly in in 2004 and 2006. And they were about average in 2008. But their polls were poor this year.

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.

Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly - NYTimes.com

ALL polls this far out from the election are inaccurate by the very nature of what it's doing...

Rasmussen has gotten a negative connotation as biased... but its far less biased than some of the polls done by THE NEW YORK TIMES (a liberal and competitive polling agency) who he posted an article from, PPP, DailyKos, etc.

So if the standard today is we base polls on "polling average" sites, and the polls averaged together lean far more left than they do right... all of their results will pull the actual results to the left of actuality... I don't put as much stock in "poll averages" as other people seem to...

This also holds true for the age and technology use gaps, for many of the ways these surveys are conducted...

I've long hated polls, and releasing poll numbers says what, anyway? Don't vote for this guy he's not in the lead? What kind of voter is the one who looks to the polls for who they're going to vote?

There is so much left to occur that all the pre-election polls will shift over and over again, from a VP candidate pick, 2 conventions, 3 presidential and 1 vice presidential debates, and numerous new stories and scandals which pop up daily in the age of instant media & gratification, it could even come down to momentum of that very day and which candidate ate what for breakfast, had what tie on, etc.

Still... I have to agree... the polls at the moment, showing a close race, with undecideds still out there would portent to a loss in the fall for Obama... since the undecideds have historically gone 80% to 20% to the challenger... If you go through most of those polls and made undecideds chose, the polls would either tighten up, or swing in Romney's favor... and if you take the historic precident of 80% to 20% and applied it to each "undecided" number in each poll, almost all of them would show a Romney victory...

IndepCentristMA said:

Rasmussen has gotten a negative connotation as biased... but its far less biased than some of the polls done by THE NEW YORK TIMES (a liberal and competitive polling agency) who he posted an article from, PPP, DailyKos, etc.

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Got ANYTHING to back this claim?

Rasmussen doesn't heavily sample Democrats like the other partisan hack MSM polls do

Rasmussen will shape his polls to do the most service in the interest of the GOP. As the election day nears his polls will move closer to the others. They will then claim that they were NOT outliers and they were just as accurate as anybody else.

In them meantime, Rasmussen provides a conservative narrative that attempts to advance GOP candidates and interests.

He is as dishonest as they come in that business and is a partisan political operative in the truest sense.

Nate Silver recently posted an interesting article on pollsters and house effect (bias towards one party or the other). Interestingly, Gallup is actually rated as having the most pro-Republican house effect and Rasmussen is rated as being one of the more neutral pollsters. Rasmussen appears more out of sync because they are doing likely voters versus registered voters, and as a rule Republicans vote tend to vote more reliably than Dems. OTOH, Rasmussen has other problems, like not polling cell phone users, which knocks out a big chunk of the population which happens to vote more Democratic....

Calculating 'House Effects' of Polling Firms - NYTimes.com

Rasmussen track record in mid-terms is way off. During the last two Presidential elections (04/08), he was the most accurate come election day.

Want to know who is going to win in November?


Flip a coin.

Heads, it's Obama, tails it's Romney.

That's as accurate of a prediction as you're likely to get at this point.

Gimmesometruth said:

Got ANYTHING to back this claim?

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Public Policy Poling (PPP) is a heavily biased Democratic poling agency, that they even appear with a (D) next to their name on most polling sites...

Obama

The fact that you'd even question that seems to indicate you don't feel like discussing the actual topic, but would rather distract this into a discussion about sources...

PPP is also in partnership with Daily KOS, and many PPP pols are actually conducted/commissioned by Daily KOS

PPP sells to left, polls down middle - Molly Ball - POLITICO.com

In this one, there's an article released by Markos Moulitsas, the owner of the Daily KOS, in which he apologizes for fraudulent data they used... and says;

"Sure, our friends on the Right will get to take some cheap shots, and they should take advantage of the opportunity. But ultimately, this episode validates the reason why we released the internal numbers from Research 2000 — and why every media outlet should do the same from their pollster; without full transparency of results, this fraud would not have been uncovered. As difficult as it has been to learn that we were victims of that fraud, our commitment to accuracy and the truth is far more important than shielding ourselves from cheap shots from the Right."

By making such a statment, he pretty much wraps up the case of where their bias is... a paragraph on your accuracy with 2 separate mentionings of "our friends on the Right" and "shots from the Right"...

Daily Kos to sue Research 2000 over polling fraud « Hot Air

Now...

Here's a paper about the polling bias found in the 2008 election...

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0810/0810.5603.pdf

It shows that the polls associated with the News agencies, including the major tv networks, and the newspapers they're associated with (which includes the NBC/New York Times poll) all had polls which which in line with the public perception of those agencies (which is basically left leaning, except for FOX...)

They then come to the mistaken conclusion that Rasmussen displays a bias, because both the Rasmussen and Gallup polls are significantly to the right of the DailyKOS poll (WHICH IS A HIGHLY LIBERAL POLL)... so yeah 2 major polls were similar with each other, and one was far to the left of them... oddly enough proving the exact opposite of what they claim... DailyKOS is a liberal polling agency...


Even the Obama camp believes the CBS / NY Times polls are "biased" (only in the wrong direction)... because they didn't like the results... but as the following article shows, the CBS / NY Times poll is skewed 6% to the Democrats...
Obama campaign: NYT/CBS poll 'biased' - POLITICO.com


Ah... okay... now that I've answered the "cite your source" BS accusation, as if we are writing academic research papers...

I'd say it's time you respond to the actual premise of the post... that there's a lot of time between now and the end which will make poll numbers change... and that the historic trend of undecideds going against the incumbent would turn the results of most polls in Romney's favor...

danarhea said:

One thing that people have noticed is how many polls differ from Rasmussen. While most polls show modest leads for Obama, and many Democratic Senators, Rassmussen has been polling just the opposite. This has led people to accuse Rasmussen of being a GOP operative. However, the truth lies, not in party affiliation, but methodology. Unlike most pollsters, which use a "registered voter" model, Rasmussen uses a "likely voter" model. Most pollsters say using likely voters this far out from an election will skew the results, as undecideds have not yet decided. But, this year is not like every other year. There are few undecideds left, which makes the methodology from Rasmussen more credible. And, if Rasmussen's gamble in using the likely voter model this early in the year turns out to be correct, this portends trouble for the Democrats. Worst case scenario for them, if this methodology turns out to be accurate, is the defeat of Obama and a Republican Senate takeover. This would be more of a shock wave to the Dems than 2010 was, as the GOP will then control the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

Discussion?

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The issue is not "likely voters". Look at this page: RealClearPolitics - Election 2012 - General Election: Romney vs. Obama Below the graph is a list of polls. Under the Sample column is has a number followed by LV and RV, likely or registered voters. Notice that for polls around the same time Rasmussen favors Romney even over other LV polls.

Rassmussen has long been known for it's right wing bias and has the lowest of credibility.

That being said, I am sure there no shortage of poll bias in the other direction as well. That's why I always refer to the RCP averages and InTrade. That's about as unbiased as we can get these days.

IndepCentristMA said:

Rasmussen has gotten a negative connotation as biased... but its far less biased than some of the polls done by THE NEW YORK TIMES (a liberal and competitive polling agency) who he posted an article from, PPP, DailyKos, etc.

Click to expand...

Gimmesometruth said:

Got ANYTHING to back this claim?

Click to expand...

IndepCentristMA said:

Even the Obama camp believes the CBS / NY Times polls are "biased" (only in the wrong direction)... because they didn't like the results... but as the following article shows, the CBS / NY Times poll is skewed 6% to the Democrats...
Obama campaign: NYT/CBS poll 'biased' - POLITICO.com

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Just to be clear, you are citing ONE poll as proof that the NYT's polls are "biased", whereas 105 ras polls were analyzed and they showed a statistical bias to the GOP.

You see, using a single data point, doesn't prove a gd thing....but thanks for trying.

Captain America said:

Rassmussen has long been known for it's right wing bias and has the lowest of credibility.

That being said, I am sure there no shortage of poll bias in the other direction as well. That's why I always refer to the RCP averages and InTrade. That's about as unbiased as we can get these days.

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reality gets your down.. anything that isnt Liberal kool aid is somehow "right wing" because Rasmussen uses "likely voters"...

IndepCentristMA said:

Now...

Here's a paper about the polling bias found in the 2008 election...

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0810/0810.5603.pdf

It shows that the polls associated with the News agencies, including the major tv networks, and the newspapers they're associated with (which includes the NBC/New York Times poll) all had polls which which in line with the public perception of those agencies (which is basically left leaning, except for FOX...)

They then come to the mistaken conclusion that Rasmussen displays a bias, because both the Rasmussen and Gallup polls are significantly to the right of the DailyKOS poll (WHICH IS A HIGHLY LIBERAL POLL)... so yeah 2 major polls were similar with each other, and one was far to the left of them... oddly enough proving the exact opposite of what they claim... DailyKOS is a liberal polling agency...

Click to expand...

Actually, that paper is a comparison of Gallup/Ras to the majors and Kos, which is silly since it does not reflect the accuracy of any of the polls which then displays how biased one way or another a poll is.

The 538 article I posted DOES this.

Captain America said:

Rassmussen has long been known for it's right wing bias and has the lowest of credibility.

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Ummm...thats why he was dubbed the most accurate polls for both the 2004 and 2008 Presidential election cycles?

Travis007 said:

reality gets your down.. anything that isnt Liberal kool aid is somehow "right wing" because Rasmussen uses "likely voters"...

Click to expand...

You might want to go back and read the post you responded too. It does not say what you seem to think. By the way, did you notice all those people who actually documented stuff in this thread which contrast with what you are claiming with no source?

Gimmesometruth said:

Actually, that paper is a comparison of Gallup/Ras to the majors and Kos, which is silly since it does not reflect the accuracy of any of the polls which then displays how biased one way or another a poll is.

The 538 article I posted DOES this.

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Actually, the paper compares Rasmussen and Gallup as standards (since they'd typically been the most accurate)... to compare with the news networks, who all lean left... and they showed the lean... then described Rasmussen and Gallup as far right compared to Daily Kos... (why my own inference from that data is that Daily Kos is the most bias of those measured in their stats)...

This was not a measure of accuracy to the result, it was a measure of bias in comparison with each other... Which was the topic at hand... not accuracy to the result, but bias in favor of political favoritism...

Your article does measure the accuracy of the polling agencies... during just the 2010 election alone... and it's conducted by a polling site, that is affiliated with the New York Times... So it's no shocker that they wouldn't have anything written bad about the NY Times in their article, which celebrated the 1 time they were more accurate than Rassmussen since Rasmussen was founded in 2003... However, Rasmussen proved to be highly accurate in the 2008 election, that the very same NY Times poll ranked them 3rd most accurate, and 2004 that NY Times ranked them most accurate... Additionally Rasmussen Research, his prior agency, was ranked the most accurate in 2000 as well... Rasmussen is also the first poll to give Chris Christie and Scott Brown the edge over the otherwise favored opponents...

Rassmussen historically is known as the most accurate of all the polling agencies... Yet, in 2010, despite being on the forefront of predicting the Republican swing due to Tea Party influence... they were inaccurate in some remote locations, like Hawaii... and thus Dems have targeted them...

I responded to a post saying i needed to prove what I said, and I produced 5-6 separate sources... including sources which were academic in nature, not involved in the media/polling business so as to make sure there was no outside motivation, and/or ones that including admission by the owner of the polling site of his own political leanings...

You've produced a heavily flawed source... which is skewed in its result... In essense the source is skewing its own data heavily against a competitve polling agency, in attempt to label them as biased (dismissing other contradictory evidence)... That in my mind just further proves their own bias... So I use my 5-6 sources... and the 1 you provided to help bolster my case...

Again... Though, I know you struggle with this problem persistently... How about addressing the relevant point of the discussion?

That being current poll averages, and how they would be skewed in Romney's favor if the undecideds are awarded along the persistent historical trend of going 80% to 20% in favor of the challenger?

Ive seen many polls with a 5 point margin, and 10% undecideds... if they're awarded those at 8% to 2%... that would overcome the margin of separation, prompting a Romney lead...

Hence, by making the undecideds pick between the options, Rasmussen might be more accurate in predicting this election...

Currently the Real Clear Politics polling average is at 1.2% margin in favor of Obama... that same poll had been up closer to 4-5 points like a week or so back... it's closing, and there are still undecideds out there...

That's not a positive forecast for Obama...

Redress said:

You might want to go back and read the post you responded too. It does not say what you seem to think. By the way, did you notice all those people who actually documented stuff in this thread which contrast with what you are claiming with no source?

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sorry I was just using simple historical facts, your bias is so blatent, you just blew by the erroneous post that I responded to., we all know Rasmussen is the most accurate for the reason I stated..they use "likely voters.....LOL...no you go reread and tell me "WTF" are you talking about as far as my succinct and accurate post..the post I was responding to said "Rasmussen is RIGHT WING" when it is NOT.. so again.. you show me here what you are talking about??????? now I will go slow.. this was the post I was responding to
Originally Posted by Captain America
Rassmussen has long been known for it's right wing bias and has the lowest of credibility.

now I cant wait.. you show me what my post said that is even debatable..


my post is spot on.. whats to debate?..LOL..

face it.. you like me.. you like me a lot...LOL...

Daktoria said:

If people think Rasmussen is biased, then they have no idea what bias is.

Critics have to be teasing, saying Rasmussen WISHES it belonged to the GOP establishment.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree. I think GOPers like Rasmussen just because they can get excited about his polling data, not over science but politics. On his end however IMHO he is to the best of his efforts being a purist.

Interestingly Rasmussen has liberal activist groupies too. Didn't know did you? Back when I had satellite TV there was an extreme left-wing channel out of San Fransisco called Link-TV. To the best of my knowledge its only on satellite but I watched it in efforts to be as informatively well rounded as possible and not spoon fed any single perspective on current events. I also liked the level of global information they would provide direct from global media outlets when almost all of what we see on American TV is American made. Anyhoo, Rasmussen was a regular feature on Link-TV brought in as a commentator on interview shows and I think he even had his own show. I believe their love affair with him began when his polls showed disapproval of certain George W Bush policies.

Connecting You to the World | Link TV

Ok, lets talk polls. First, there are 330,000,000 people in the USA. Polls usually are made from a sample of 1000-1200 people. They claim that the sample is selected to cover all groups within the 330,000,000. I submit that there are more distinct groups in the US than 1200, so all polls are basically created to influence public opinion, not to reflect it.

Stat 101 teaches that for a sample to be relevant it needs to include a minimum of 5% of the population. That would be 16.5 million people. These polls are a statistical joke, they mean nothing.

IndepCentristMA said:

Actually, the paper compares Rasmussen and Gallup as standards (since they'd typically been the most accurate)... to compare with the news networks, who all lean left... and they showed the lean... then described Rasmussen and Gallup as far right compared to Daily Kos... (why my own inference from that data is that Daily Kos is the most bias of those measured in their stats)...

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Uh....that is what I said ICMA, a comparison between Gallup/Rass and the rest. But have any basis for bias, one has to have a baseline to measure bias....which would be the results. That is the whole point, how accurate they are not, which then exhibits a bias. It is a comparison of apples to oranges to mangoes....there is no baseline.....unless the baseline is Gallup/Rass....which is NOT a baseline at all.

This was not a measure of accuracy to the result, it was a measure of bias in comparison with each other... Which was the topic at hand... not accuracy to the result, but bias in favor of political favoritism...

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No, the topic is the bias of rass, and you can't determine that until you know a result. That is why you look at the 2010 results and compare them to rass...then you DO have evidence of bias

Your article does measure the accuracy of the polling agencies... during just the 2010 election alone... and it's conducted by a polling site, that is affiliated with the New York Times... So it's no shocker that they wouldn't have anything written bad about the NY Times in their article, which celebrated the 1 time they were more accurate than Rassmussen since Rasmussen was founded in 2003... However, Rasmussen proved to be highly accurate in the 2008 election, that the very same NY Times poll ranked them 3rd most accurate, and 2004 that NY Times ranked them most accurate... Additionally Rasmussen Research, his prior agency, was ranked the most accurate in 2000 as well... Rasmussen is also the first poll to give Chris Christie and Scott Brown the edge over the otherwise favored opponents...

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The article noted the ACCURACY of Rass in 2000, 2004, 2006 2008 2010....you did not read well.

Rassmussen historically is known as the most accurate of all the polling agencies... Yet, in 2010, despite being on the forefront of predicting the Republican swing due to Tea Party influence... they were inaccurate in some remote locations, like Hawaii... and thus Dems have targeted them...

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No, they have not been accurate, as pointed out in the article.

I responded to a post saying i needed to prove what I said, and I produced 5-6 separate sources... including sources which were academic in nature, not involved in the media/polling business so as to make sure there was no outside motivation, and/or ones that including admission by the owner of the polling site of his own political leanings...

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You did not read my quote accurately, I specifically highlighted your accusation that NYT polls are inaccurate. You produced ONE data point.

You've produced a heavily flawed source... which is skewed in its result... In essense the source is skewing its own data heavily against a competitve polling agency, in attempt to label them as biased (dismissing other contradictory evidence)... That in my mind just further proves their own bias... So I use my 5-6 sources... and the 1 you provided to help bolster my case...

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Wrong, the NYT article used 105 data points, and the article does not support your view...at all.

Again... Though, I know you struggle with this problem persistently... How about addressing the relevant point of the discussion?

That being current poll averages, and how they would be skewed in Romney's favor if the undecideds are awarded along the persistent historical trend of going 80% to 20% in favor of the challenger?

Ive seen many polls with a 5 point margin, and 10% undecideds... if they're awarded those at 8% to 2%... that would overcome the margin of separation, prompting a Romney lead...

Hence, by making the undecideds pick between the options, Rasmussen might be more accurate in predicting this election...

Currently the Real Clear Politics polling average is at 1.2% margin in favor of Obama... that same poll had been up closer to 4-5 points like a week or so back... it's closing, and there are still undecideds out there...

That's not a positive forecast for Obama...

Click to expand...

That is not the topic of this thread, though you want to change it into that. The topic is the accuracy of Rass's methodology.....which the article I posted addresses DIRECTLY.

You are extremely inaccurate in the reading of the first post, my post and my responses.

Redress said:

You might want to go back and read the post you responded too. It does not say what you seem to think. By the way, did you notice all those people who actually documented stuff in this thread which contrast with what you are claiming with no source?

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I, too, have noticed a marked decrease in reading comprehension as of late. I'm thinking it's the heat. That, or everyone is just in too big of a hurry to think about what they say. Or, maybe it's just me starting to take notice. I'm not really sure.

Sometimes, I feel the time spent on research, and sharing said research, is like pissing up a rope. Is this what is often referred to as "casting pearls amongst swine?"

I think I am going to make a list of who I shall dialog with from now on as time is valuable. So many posters, so little time.

danarhea said:

One thing that people have noticed is how many polls differ from Rasmussen. While most polls show modest leads for Obama, and many Democratic Senators, Rassmussen has been polling just the opposite. This has led people to accuse Rasmussen of being a GOP operative. However, the truth lies, not in party affiliation, but methodology. Unlike most pollsters, which use a "registered voter" model, Rasmussen uses a "likely voter" model. Most pollsters say using likely voters this far out from an election will skew the results, as undecideds have not yet decided. But, this year is not like every other year. There are few undecideds left, which makes the methodology from Rasmussen more credible. And, if Rasmussen's gamble in using the likely voter model this early in the year turns out to be correct, this portends trouble for the Democrats. Worst case scenario for them, if this methodology turns out to be accurate, is the defeat of Obama and a Republican Senate takeover. This would be more of a shock wave to the Dems than 2010 was, as the GOP will then control the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

Discussion?

Click to expand...

Wow, Nate Silver wrote something about this just today.

Does Romney Have an Edge From Likely Voter Polls? - NYTimes.com

In it, he concludes that likely voter polls indeed have more accurate results than registered voter polls overall. But when comparing likely voter and registered voter polls taken before September 1st, the registered voter polls perform slightly better. Right now he suggests giving Romney and the Republicans about a one and a half percentage shift on registered voter polls, but concludes Obama is still the favorite right now regardless.

I do agree with you that there are more undecideds this election than in previous ones though (about 3% fewer undecideds than in July 2008), and it remains to be seen what effect it will have on the accuracy of these polls. My guess though, is that it will increase Rasmussen's accuracy in the Presidential election and Senate races where the candidates are both very well known, Virginia for example. But, I think that even in today's political world where ticket splitting is growing more and more uncommon, Rasmussen's polls of Senate and Gubernatorial races where there is limited name recognition for one or both of the candidates will have a less accurate reading than registered voters polls done in the same time period.