I think Rasmussen is a genius in the sense that his polls are often cited by Republican sources to give the base hope. It drives up his name, but it's so far out that he can do a pivot without totally looking like he's cheating. In the end, his polls aren't that bad when you look at the final results ... it's just getting to those final results where issues arise.

Rasmussen wants to be around to harass us another day.

Ras is Romney up 3, Washington Post is Romney up 1 and Gallup is Obama up 1. There is no real difference in those polls. Other polls are similar. No credible current poll has either candidate up by more than 5.

(R)asmussen indicated a close race between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman. Brown won by thirteeen percentage points.

Also, according to Nate Silver his polls skew nearly five percent Republican.

And he doesn't even poll cell phone only voters...

Ras and the other polls are all with in the margin of error. No credible poll has either candidate running away with this election.

There is a huge difference between +1 for Obama and +3 for Romney ... a four-point difference overall is massive in terms of polling. Especially when you're dealing with two polls that show difference candidates leading.

He's not going to give (R)omney a lead large enough to engender suspicion, just large enough to skew the average and distort the state of the race.

But it is useless to argue with someone who does not understand the statistical formulas behind polling. You are clearly someone who is going to find some fault with any poll that has a result that you don't like.

It doesn't take a genius to see the dramatic difference between one poll showing Romney with a comfortable lead and the other showing Obama leading narrowly. They're night & day - a four-point swing from the mean is HUGE and if you've ever done polling, you would easily see where I am coming from this.

To further advance what I'm saying ... just a couple days ago, when those same polls you quoted had Obama leading by 1 or 2 points generally, Rasmussen had Romney leading by four. Was he right then? Now you're looking at a difference of SIX points - which is a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon.

Sorry, but Rasmussen continually shows Romney doing better than most every poll. It's been that way the entire race. Even when Obama pushed his lead up to 7 and 9 prior to Ryan being announced, Rasmussen had Romney leading by 2 to 3 points - again, a huge, huge difference.

I follow the polls every day on RCP. But I'm sure if you are right you will link to that day. Ras has a different result because they do likely voters. The other polls are doing registered voters. The big question is whether the people that vote in November are the same mix of demographics as Ras is using for their likely voter pool. Maybe that will happen, maybe a different mix will show up. We won't know that answer to that until after the election.

All you have to do is check here:

http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/contests/us-president-12

The day CNN released its poll showing Obama up 52-45, Rasmussen had Romney leading 47-43. Every other poll had Obama leading.

And you're wrong - not all polls are doing RV. CNN did LV and it shows it a tie and Democracy Corps, which has Obama up 1, was of LV too.

I don't know why you're defending Ras here. It's clear you, and the poll, are in the wrong. Romney has led, almost universally, in their poll since May:



And still, overall, Obama has held leads of marginal to significant margins. The graph shows it all - while Obama has led occasionally, on the whole, he's constantly trailed in their poll more than any other poll from any other organization. So, no, it is a huge deal and you can down play it all you want ... but it doesn't change the fact Rasmussen has been consistently leaning Romney's way more than ANY other national poll.

Face it, Rasmussen is not credible.

But I will take your word for it. CNN is a 'point in time' poll and Ras is a daily tracking poll. Two different animals. Ras has had Obama in the lead quite a few times including right before the RNC. The Gallup tracking poll and Ras have not been that much different. I guess we will have to disagree on that. I am not "defending" any poll. I do know that various polls use different demographic mixes to weight their responses. So you will get different results. I am not a professional pollster and I doubt you are either so I don't know who is right. We will know after November. I am just not one of those who adopt the conspiracy theory of pollsters. Ras clearly has R connections just as PPP is a Democratic firm. I don't discount the numbers of either one just because of that.

I've not seen many national polls that give Romney a lead quite like Ras has in the past. Even when Romney leads, it's either by a point or two and nothing as significant as 3 or 4 points or more. We'll see how it shakes out, but I just am not convinced Rasmussen is an accurate poll.

Since (at least according to many DUers) he does not need to pay any employees to do any actual polling, and the entire company is one guy pulling numbers out of his ass (depending upon what he thinks will help the Republicans the most) while cackling maniacally to himself at his evil genius.

I imagine that lowers your overhead.


And google strategic vision and research 2000 scams for pollsters who might not even poll at all,,

I would imagine it will look very similar to the results in Rasmussen.

They are not very far out of step right now.

I don't see that large a shift.