Rasmussen Reports polls get the election really, really wrong (Washington Examiner)

[Welcome_hubby]

Source: Washington Examiner

Rasmussen’s biggest problem was they consistently had more Republicans in their samples that Democrats, even though other pollsters showed Democrats outnumbered Republicans. The actual election results proved Rasmussen and Chambers wrong. Exit polls from yesterday show that Democrats actually outnumbered Republicans by six percentage points. This is largely attributable to the fact that many former Republicans now identify themselves as independents. The other pollsters accounted for this conversion. Rasmussen Reports did not.

These margins of inaccuracy may not seem like much, but the other pollsters, such as Public Policy Polling, We Ask America, and Survey USA, did get their predictions right, which proves that it was possible. In many cases, like in Wisconsin, Rasmussen Reports strayed far from the average of other pollsters. Over the last year, Rasmussen has consistently been to the right of the Real Clear Politics average of polls, and now the election results prove that they “wrongly right.” This fact is worth keeping in mind as Rasmussen releases polls in future years for the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential election.

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/rasmussen-reports-polls-get-the-election-really-really-wrong

[tomm2thumbs]

1. they were only calling people with rotary dial phones...

but that is obviously how the pros do it nowadays!

[Vincardog]

2. They were only calling the people who were going to give them the "Right" answer

[regnaD kciN]

3. And your little Gallup, too!

While they may have done the "Rasmussen Shuffle" back to a claim of credibility in their one-off post-Sandy poll, no one should forget that their national tracker was consistently showing a five-point lead for Romney, while most other trackers were showing a tie or slight Obama lead, all the way until the hurricane allowed them to conveniently suspend it.

[Richardo]

4. ...says the newspaper that published Rassmussen and Gallup polls almost exclusively.

[UCmeNdc]

5. Gallup was off also

[defacto7]

6. It's beyond obvious

There's were all wrong... skewed...

Ours were mostly right if not absolutely right.

They can't start blaming it on the call process, they skewed it. Period.

[progressoid]

7. They over sampled people with party lines.

[rhett o rick]

11. One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy. I remember party lines. And 50 ft phone cords

so you could sit on the basement sets to get some privacy.

[llmart]

12. LOL

I used to work on one of those back in 1969!

Yeah, I'm old It was fun listening in on the bigwigs in the company.

[progressoid]

13. My Grandmother used to listen in on the neighbors!

[llmart]

16. My father used to do that at our house......

we had a party line.

[tibbiit]

17. I did too

I loved that job. A PBXmachine.
tib

[llmart]

18. Oh, I'd forgotten that they were called that.

Ah, those were the days, huh? Pulling those plugs out and watching the board light up and seeing how many you could pull out and plug in. Sure made me feel I was important when I was 19!

[TrollBuster9090]

8. It's significant that it's The Washington Examiner that's saying this. Rasmussen basically

played his last card on Monday, and they knew it.

We all know what the game is with Rasmussen polls. Their job is to buck up the Republican troops by raising both hope and MONEY ...IN BETWEEN elections, by reporting fudged numbers, showing higher than actual support for Republican candidates and positions.

However, RIGHT BEFORE the election, they have to stop reporting fudged numbers and start reporting real ones, because the day after the election somebody is going to actually COMPARE their opinion polls to the actual election results. So, by switching from fake numbers to real ones the day before the election, they maintain their facade of being accurate. When, in fact, they're really a PUSH POLLING organization. (ie-dedicated to shaping public opinion and action, rather than reporting it.)

Well, they dropped that on Monday, reporting fudged numbers right up until the end, KNOWING that they might be proved wrong, and lose their credibility. But it was a last ditch effort to influence the election, and it clearly failed.

So...what to do now that their 'reputation' has been blown? I expect you'll see Rasmussen polls continue to exist, but nobody will give them any credibility anymore. But the Right Wing Noise Machine will start up another fake polling organization, employing the same gang of push-polling clowns, under another name. "American Polling Institute" or something non-partisan sounding, like that.

[Roland99]

9. Is Zogby still polling?

don't remember seeing anything from them.

[rhett o rick]

10. If you are a polling company and you get it really, really wrong, give it up. nm

[sendero]

14. Rassmussen and Gallup...

.... ALWAYS skew Republican and are useless as predictors of elections.

[DeSwiss]

15. Rasmussen has always been WRONG. - K&R n/t

[FamilyMan]

19. Rassmussen is garbage

The president of Rassmussen took a cruise with Karl Rove before this election, says it all. Rassmussen and Gallup have proven for the last time that they are junk biased polls. Rassmussen is getting slammed all over the internet.

[Makelaly]

20. Spam deleted by William769 (MIR Team)