Rasmussen has 46-46 TIE!!

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm ^

[dangus]

Tracking polls move a bit from day to day. The fact Rasmussen shows Kerry and Bush bouncing up and down a little may simply mean that they are being honest and reporting the normal statistical variations. Although I was getting the feeling they were looking at other polls over the last few days.

[dangus]

>>wow, when they lose in Nov, the DUmmies will say "It's good we lost so we can get stirred up and work harder in 2008."<<

O, yeah, right. Like they'll really admit they lost. I remember in 1984 when people were talking about the silent majority who were so dismayed by Reagen and the "conservative Democrats" that they stayed home. The claim was that Reagen only got under 30%. (50% of 58%)

[Interesting Times]

Why do the TV and Cable Newsrooms hide Hanoi Kerry's past?

This is one of those trick questions, right?

[dangus]

Frankly, ABC's poll immediately before the convention *did* set up a false low-water mark for Kerry. Weighing the persistently shows that Bush did not improve before the convention, and Kerry got no bounce after the convention.

[dangus]

Funny... the middle of a sentence got cut:

...Weighing the party affiliation so it tracks consistently shows...

[jveritas]

DU'ers are simply stupid people who make us laugh.

[MeekOneGOP]

From your link, Big Otto.

Here's your BUMP, John Fn Kerry !!

Election 2004
Date	Bush	Kerry
Today	46	46
Aug 3	45	48
Aug 2	46	47
Aug 1	45	49
July 31	46	47
July 30	45	48
July 29	45	48
July 28	45	48
July 27	46	47
July 26	46	46
July 25	46	47
July 24	45	47
July 23	45	48
July 22	45	48
July 21	47	46
July 20	47	45
July 19	47	45
July 18	46	46
July 17	46	47
July 16	46	48
Earlier Results for RR Premium Members
Dates are release dates  Surveys conducted on preceding three nights
RasmussenReports.com

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"This is one of those trick questions, right?"

I wish BUT the fact is ABC CBS CNN FOX and NBC still call Hanoi Kerry a war hero.

They leave out a war hero to the Viet Cong.

[Mister Blond]

I agree. I roll my eye a lot. Especially the way Zogby gets bashed. There's a reason these people have jobs as pollsters, and it's not just some big conspiracy.

And by the way, I share your hesitation.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

If you recall the media tried to give FL to Gore in 2000
VNS was a private consortium owned by
ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC.
4 of the 5 of the networks and cable newsrooms
(only ABC waited till both time zones closed)
"announced" Gore had won
BEFORE the 2nd time zone in FL had closed.
This cost President Bush votes in the FL panhandle.

I was at a friends house and the State of FL election website results showed President Bush was winning

In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.

About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida,
the networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic candidate.

The premature calls may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided;
some last-minute voters on their way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West; Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.

Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the state by 300,000 votes.

So depress overall turnout in the panhandle,
and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes.

A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost Bush at least 7,500 votes,
and perhaps many more.

At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore?
The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.

Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner,
as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.

At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations” (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)

The big 5 media TV and Cable newsrooms are the real threat to the 2004 election.

..."Early on Tuesday, November 7th 2000, TV stations and various media based in Florida reported that Gore has won Florida which was a big surprise for everyone because of strong republican support. Bush's brother Jeb is governor there and Florida usually gives support to the Republicans. Some of them questioned that and during the night CNN showed 52% Bush's lead over 46% for Gore. It is almost impossible to believe that media could have been that blind and biased to report Gore's victory."...

[johnny7]

~~maybe Im off track. I think the lack of bounce, or that appearance, actually works to our benefit. It might just motivate more of us to get everyone we know to the polls. If we had a 10 point lead, I think we might become complacent or over confident and wouldnt do everything we could do to bring people to the polls.~~

The insanity of this person is revealed by the way he/she identifies with the Kerry campaign.(see bold text) The morons who root for the Boston Red Sox write the same pathetic fashion.

I don't identify one friggin' iota with George Bush... I will vote for him because John Kerry is a nightmare for America if elected.

[TomEwall]

The Rasmussen JA numbers are high compared to other polls and the horse race numbers low, so 55% would be a good number to aim at, which would translate to 51% or something like that for the other polls.

[TomEwall]

The question is if things are different in this election cycle and there just aren't any convention bounces to be had (in which case things aren't so bad for Kerry), or if Kerry should have gotten a bounce, but didn't (which is obviously bad). We won't know until after the GOP convention.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

I don't know how many have noticed, but I was just over at Rasmussen, and when I see the internals, it does appear that he is overweighting Democrats by 3-4% not only in the horse race but in some state polls. For example, his newly released Iowa poll has Kerry up 3, HOWEVER, Bush gets 1% more R's than Kerry gets D's and they are tied on independents. I remember reading yesterday similar discrepancies in the horse race poll.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Ah, the details are right in plain view...from today's 46-46 news splash:

" Bush is the choice for 88% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats, and 41% of unaffiliated voters. Kerry is preferred by 81% of Democrats, 9% of Republicans, and 42% of unaffiliated voters."

Here's what the Iowa poll said:

" Kerry has secured the vote from 87% of Iowa Democrats while Bush has done the same with 86% of the state's Republicans. Among those who are not affiliated with either political party, it's tied with each candidate earning 42% of the vote. Last month, Kerry held the lead among Iowa's undecided voters, 43% to 39%."

Haven't looked at all the other state polls but wouldn't be surprised that this trend was prominent in Rasmussen's polling. For the horse race numbers, a balanced weighting should put Bush up by 5 or so. Everyone who reads Rasmussen's polls should be aware of this bias.

[Owen]

Folks,

When one talks about the "accuracy" of a poll, what is meant?

Does that mean that it measured the opinion of the electorate as a whole? Does it mean it measured the opinion of registered voters? Or adults?

Sampling theory is well understood. If you sample carefully, you can project samples of hundreds to a population of millions. Millions will vote in November.

The partisan mix focus of our turnout model discussions is important, but it is just as important to understand that no one knows the right mix. When we berate the LA Times for "oversampling" Democrats, we don't know that they are wrong. That might be the turnout. Maybe 10% more Dems than GOP voters will turn out. If that proves true, we'll lose.

If Rasmussen is using the 2000 election's turnout model, we would expect him to have a different result. Ditto Gallup. The turnout model defined who is sampled and that yields the result.

There is also some considerable doubt that anyone really knows accurately what % of the electorate are registered GOP or an independent who usually votes that way. And vice versa for the Dems. We don't even know the national mix, let along the correct sampling mix. There are a lot of independents out there.

Anyway, what we've always said holds true. If the sampling mix is held constant, changes in the poll are meaningful.

[philman_36]

Oh boy, is it ever working! /sarcasm

Americans are so gullible. There is no way to conclusively find out the veracity of any of these polls, whether done by a neutral, conservative or liberal polling organization. We just have to "take their word for it".
Instead of Bullwinkle Moose pulling a rabbit out of his hat we've got pollsters pulling numbers out of their @$$ and Americans continually swallow this up like it was chicken soup for the soul. And lo and behold, it's a virtual "dead heat", just like Florida 2000 and just like some want it so that reality remains hog tied.

Can't folks see through this simple ploy or are they just too unwilling to admit that they've been played?

[TomEwall]

"Haven't looked at all the other state polls but wouldn't be surprised that this trend was prominent in Rasmussen's polling. For the horse race numbers, a balanced weighting should put Bush up by 5 or so. Everyone who reads Rasmussen's polls should be aware of this bias."

I don't understand your point here. Please explain. Thanks.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Reread the post, it should be quite clear. Rasmussen divulged that Bush was beating Kerry by getting more of his base, and beating Kerry by getting more D's, then they are both tied in getting I's. The only way then that the poll can be tied is that Rasmussen is underweighting R's, and by the numbers, it looks like a significant underweight. He was doing the same thing in the IA poll and come to find out in today's polls, he didn't post the internals. Wonder why.

[TomEwall]

Thanks for the explanation. It wasn't clear to me, which is why I asked for clarification.

Rasmussen's assumptions include a loose LV screen and that Nader won't be a factor, both favorable for Kerry. His national tracking poll appears to be about 2 points favorable to Kerry and the state polls about 4 points.