What Is Going On With The Rasmussen Reports Polls?

Tales from a Tribble ^ | June 4, 2014 | Big Mike

[DestroyLiberalism]

We've all seen how Rasmussen Reports has jumped the shark and become a far more Obama/Democrat-friendly polling agency since Scott Rasmussen left the company in 2012. Yet I don't know how ANYONE can any longer take this outfit seriously given how it now has the latest Obama job approval tracking poll of likely voters at 52% APPROVAL, 46% DISAPPROVAL in the wake of the escalating national outrage over the despicable Obama regime's treasonous swap of five terrorist leaders for one American "soldier" who had deserted his platoon, which ultimately led to the deaths of six other military troops. Keep in mind that the latest Real Clear Politics average of all media polls currently has Obama's composite approval average at 43.4% (and this figure actually includes Rasmussen's latest inflated poll!)

www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

Anyway, I stumbled upon a conservative blogger known as "Big Mike" who has calculated some interesting statistics regarding Rasmussen Reports' Oba-Mao job approval numbers since October 2013 and found the results to be an interesting read. I thought you might too...

(see below)

[DestroyLiberalism]

What Is Going On With The Rasmussen Reports Polls?

June 4th update: I'll just give today's Rasmussen Reports numbers with one comment. [then please read the June 3 update from yesterday, and if you haven't yet the original post from Oct. 21, 2013]. Thank you.

Rasmussen [less] Reports:Obama Approval 52%- Disapproval 47%

Comment: Why, oh why, great Real Clear Politics do you continue to list in your job approval numbers of the President such an undisputed, every day outlier poll, and what I and many others believe is an obvious illegitimate poll?

Update: June 3, 2014: So, as not to be repetitive on every Rasmussen Reports update, please read the first sentence of the May 27, 2014 update. Well President Obama is going through another uncomfortable period in his presidency with the VA scandal and now his ill advised terrorist exchange and photo op with the pro Taliban dad of the deserter. Well, I guess the president's approval rating is down. And yes it is with CNN, Gallup, CBS News, Associated Press, Reuters, and ABC News/Washington Post with an average negative spread of those 6 polling organizations at - 10.8% ... and then there is the Rasmussen Reports poll. Yes, somehow they are catching a different mood of the country regarding the president's approval vs disapproval rating in their poll. They incredibly once again have the president in positive territory at + 1% = 50% approve and 49% disapprove. So, either Rasmussen is right or every single other poll out there is right.

Keeping the tally from October 21, 2013, when I started my Rasmussen Reports Poll watch [since Scott Rasmussen left the polling firm and taken over by God knows who], try to digest the following stats: In the last 225 days, Rasmussen Reports has had Obama's approval rating at or above 50%, 34 times -- RCP at or above 50%, 0 times. In the last 225 days, Rasmussen Reports has had Obama's approval above 45% an astounding 179 times -- RCP [even including Rasmussen in their list] has had Obama's approval above 45%, 1 time.

In case you missed that, let me repeat those numbers....at or above 50%, 34 times vs. 0 times and above 45%, 179 times vs. 1 time.

Is the Rasmussen Reports poll bogus? Tales reports, you decide ... the obvious.

[End of excerpt... Read more at http://www.talesfromatribble.com/2013/10/what-is-going-on-with-rasmussen-reports.html]

[apillar]

It's my understanding that Rasmussen got embarrassed when his final poll before the 2012 election had Romney winning by a couple points only to have Obama win by a comfortable margin. So he retooled his polling in the last couple years to base them on the 2012 turnout numbers (basically putting a whole lot more minorities, young people, and single women in the poll). The problem is, nobody even on the democrat side thinks the electorate in the midterms is going to have anywhere near the turnout of their base as 2010.

[tatown]

It is annoying to see the Rasmussen daily tracker listed as legitimate when it is always 5 to 15 points higher than the other polls included in RCP’s average. I would hope that at some point RCP would simply dump them from the average but up until now RCP seems more than happy to include their biased daily results.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Yep. Obama had a record shattering turnout of nonwhite voters in 2012. Without that Romney is your POTUS. Nobody thinks that model is likely to repeat in a midterm.

[NYRepublican72]

I’m not sure if Rasmussen changed his methodology, but the big disconnect in 2012 was that he didn’t poll folks that had just cell phones.

They are more likely to skew younger, poor and more alligned with the Rat party. Not sure what he did to compensate.

[tatown]

What he did is leave the company. The current ‘model’ has nothing to do with Rasmussen.

[Principled]

Or RCP could throw out the highest and lowest then do an average... actually I thought they did... is there an outlier lying out further than “0bamussen”?

[apillar]

For comparison her is all the other major polls of Obama's approval rating....

Reuters/Ipsos 38 Approve 56 Disapprove -18
FOX News 40 Approve 54 Disapprove -14
Associated Press/GfK 43 Approve 56 Disapprove -13
CNN/Opinion Research 43 Approve 55 Disapprove -12
Gallup 43 Approve 52 Disapprove -9
ABC News/Wash Post 45 Approve 53 Disapprove -8
CBS News 43 Approve 48 Disapprove -5

Rasmussen Reports 52 Approve 46 Disapprove +6

(There is a whopping 24 point spread between Obama's approval in the worst poll (Reuters at -18) compared to (Rasmussen at +6)

[Lazamataz]

Scott Rasmussen no longer works at Rasmussen.

It's not the same company any more/

[Principled]

Tough sledding trying to read that page - good info but hard to get at.

Even more stark is to look at how many times Rasmussen vs RCP has had Obama's approval above 45%. The Rasmussen Reports in the last 218 days has had Obama's approval above 45% an incredible 172 times. RCP has had Obama's approval above 45 % - 1 time. 1 as in once!

In the last 218 days, the Ras poll has 0bama above 45% 172 times.
Ras has 0bama above 45 almost 79% of days.

In the last 218 days, the RCP poll has 0bama above 45% one time.
RCP has 0bama above 45 less than 1% of days.

[fwdude]

What I don’t get is that the list of issues Ras tracked almost always had Republicans earning more trust on the lion’s share of them, but Obama and Democrats still got elected.

[El Cid]

It's my understanding that Rasmussen got embarrassed when his final poll before the 2012 election had Romney winning by a couple points only to have Obama win by a comfortable margin. So he retooled his polling in the last couple years to base them on the 2012 turnout numbers (basically putting a whole lot more minorities, young people, and single women in the poll).

He probably also "retooled" them to factor in systematic Democrat voter fraud.

[tatown]

I don’t think anyone is questioning the accuracy of Rasmussen’s past track record. That is irrelevant. The issue is the current ‘Rasmussen’ tracking poll. It is simply fiction. Every MSM poll has Obama at less than 45% approval yet the RINO (Rasmussen In Name Only) poll has Obama at 52%. It seems that the only goal of this RINO pollster is to bias the RCP average in Obama’s favor.

[paul544]

Kind of like how they didn’t expect it 2012 either? Keep whistling past the graveyard...

[fwdude]

The issue is the current ‘Rasmussen’ tracking poll. It is simply fiction. Every MSM poll has Obama at less than 45% approval yet the RINO (Rasmussen In Name Only) poll has Obama at 52%.

I don't doubt that the current agenda of Scott's former site is decidedly different. And I believe that the numbers are bogus too (Rasmussen doesn't even conduct the surveys, but relies on another party, Pulse Opinion Research, to conduct the field work.) But you can't just compare the various polls side-by-side. They are not apples to apples.

Rasmussen reports on "likely voters" as their pool of respondents, unlike most other polls, which just poll respondents located in the US. Of course, that is a completely "honor system" answer, but it might result in some of the differences.

[fwdude]

Also, the method of the "Rasmussen" poll is to stratify the respondents into all approval/disapproval and strong approval/disapproval.

[Buckeye McFrog]

2012 was about rallying behind their homeboy. Do you really think they’re gonna turn out in waves for Mary Landrieu or Mark Pryor?

[fwdude]

We'll see. 2012 surprised a lot of people. I'm convinced that election fraud played a lot into it.

Since our common-sense voter ID law was finally allowed to become effective for this election cycle, decidedly more conservative candidates have been successful knocking out old RINO waste. I don't think that that is any coincidence.

[tatown]

No matter how you spin or try to explain it, the approval numbers they are reporting are garbage and everyone knows it.

[FreeAtlanta]

I wonder what the real numbers are.