Guess who’s leading the polls now? Have these pollsters found something the others missed?
Rasmussen. Getting previous elections right gives them a certain credibility.
For a reference point, some reviews of their past results will be included at the end of this piece.
What are the current findings?
Early results from their final debate are in, and Donald Trump remains barely ahead of Hillary Clinton in the White House Watch.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Trump with a 43% to 41% lead over his Democratic rival. Five percent (5%) favor Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein earns three percent (3%) support. Another three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Yesterday, Trump was ahead by three.
Yes. Trump up by three. Is that what YOU are hearing on the news?
As for their historical accuracy?
Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen wrote in 2010 that Rasmussen has an “unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy.”[41] Slate Magazine and The Wall Street Journal reported that Rasmussen Reports was one of the most accurate polling firms for the 2004 United States presidential election and 2006 United States general elections.[40][66][not in citation given] In 2004 Slate magazine “publicly doubted and privately derided” Rasmussen’s use of recorded voices in electoral polls. However, after the election, they concluded that Rasmussen’s polls were among the most accurate in the 2004 presidential election.[40] According to Politico, Rasmussen’s 2008 presidential-election polls “closely mirrored the election’s outcome.”[67]
At the end of the 2008 presidential election, there were eight national tracking polls and many other polls conducted on a regular basis. Polling analyst Nate Silver reviewed the tracking polls and said that while none were perfect, and Rasmussen was “frequently reputed to have a Republican lean”, the “house effect” in their tracking poll was small and “with its large sample size and high pollster rating [it] would probably be the one I’d want with me on a desert island.”[68]
In the January 2010 special election for the Senate seat from Massachusetts, Rasmussen Reports was the first to show that Republican Scott Brown had a chance to defeat Martha Coakley. Just after Brown’s upset win, Ben Smith at Politico reported, “The overwhelming conventional wisdom in both parties until a Rasmussen poll showed the race in single digits in early January was that Martha Coakley was a lock. (It’s hard to recall a single poll changing the mood of a race quite that dramatically.)”[69] A few days later, Public Policy Polling released the first poll showing Brown in the lead, a result differing from Rasmussen’s by 10 points.[70] Rasmussen’s last poll on the race found Coakley with a 2-point lead, when she in fact lost by 5 points, a 7-point error.[71]
Journalist Mickey Kaus said, “If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious New York Times, go with Rasmussen.”[72] — Wikileaks
