Posted on 09/26/2008 6:29:14 AM PDT by CatOwner
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote while John McCain earns 45%. This is Obama’s biggest lead since his convention bounce peaked with a six-point advantage. In fact, on only two days since clinching the Democratic nomination in early June has Obama enjoyed a lead bigger than he has today.
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
True, but he was much closer in 2004, after he changed his methodology to weigh his results by party affiliation. To be sure, most pollsters pretty much nailed the 2004 election as a 2-3 point Bush win, so I don't know how much stock to put into this result. Likewise, I don't know if that was dumb luck or if he improved his robot phone methodololgy that he uses. I don't remember how good his state-by-state polling was, either.
Again, in the current poll I very strongly suspect here is that the problem is a huge outlier day for Obama on Tuesday. It drops off tomorrow.
How do you know that Tuesday was +11 Obama and last night was +1.25 McCain?
Another Rasmussen poll shows McCain ahead a point.
To preserve my sanity, I’m gonna quit paying attention to these polls. Come on, Nov. 4th!
Where do you get the 1.25% number? I don’t subscribe to Rasmussen’s service, but I do keep an Excel chart where I try to guess the individual nights based on changes in the national average. And my chart is showing the same huge night for Obama as you are indicating here, although for me I am guessing 7 points rather than 11 — still a ridiculously huge number for Obama in a Rasmussen poll.
By my calculations, McCain narrowly won Monday in Rasmussen's poll. Right now it seems obvious that Rasmussen's numbers are out of whack because he had one of those 5% nights on Tuesday where one of the candidates polled over three standard deviations outside of the mean (wonky statistics lingo which in plain English translates into "outlier", which can happen roughly 5% of the time).
Lets just hope Zogby is the lucky blind squirrel that finally finds his acorn.
I sure pray that you are right. This country cannot stand a Obama as president.
I’m gonna spew...
If you don't need credit or a job, you'll be alright without some kind of bailout.
That's not true. I haven't attacked Rasmussen or his methodology I'm just wondering why his results are so different from every other tracking poll. I'm more interested in the way the numbers are trending at this point in the game than I am in the raw numbers. As I stated earlier Zogby, Battleground Tracking and Gallop all have McCain trending up. Rasmussen is mising the trend. Why?
Catowner,
ABC/WaPo has already been analyzed and debunked as an outlier. They oversampled dems by 16% (vs 3% actual over the last 4-5 elections), and oversampled African Americans by 6%.
Rasmussen seems to lag.
Batteground is one of the best since it is done by BOTH a democratic and republican pollster.
Regardless, national polls do not matter. Better off to look at state polls, which unfortunately are less frequent and have a larger MOE.
What is really the thing to look at is the internals and demographics of the polls. McCain is winning almost every demographic profile. Women, Catholics, Independants, and even younger voters have shift to McCain the last month.
Obama peaked in February, and has not made any progress in expanding his voter demographics since that time.
He has openly swayed from his traditional models this election season, and I think it's going to hurt his credibility.
He has a rather large - near six point - Democrat turnout edge figured in to his national polls, and is apparently doing the same in his state polls - assuming larger Dem-to-GOP turnout gaps than have presented themselves in the past few elections.
His assumption just doesn't seem plausible. For example, if the turnout was 5-6 percent more Dems, there would be no swing states - they'd all be blue. It is starting to reveal itself in his polls.
believe me...I pray, and pray hard, that is the case....
The way I'd view these polls is the way RCP does it, but discount the blatantly biased ones, like the MSM polls... So... as of right now, with McCain +2, Gallup even, Ras -5 (Diageo/Hotline is Zero up 4), it's safe to assume that Zero is up about 2 points... Nothing to panic about right now.
Do you really believe polls can change the mind of one voter this late in the game? I think most voters have already made a choice between Mac and Obama. Aren't the pollsters paid to do their job? If so, then why not jiggle the numbers to create a following?
It's nonsense, make up your own mind. People can lie to pollsters and who's to say pollsters don't change what the voter tells them?
Rasmussen breaks down the day to day numbers for premium members.
The Rasmussen poll trended to Obama for two reasons.
1st: 1 +5 McCain sample rolled off.
2nd: A Huge +11 Obama sample on Tuesday.
That big Obama sample rolls off tomorrow. The poll should track toward McCain baring another huge Obama sample tonight.
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