Online methodology may affect Rasmussen polls

Rasmussen Online Polls

            Rasmussen Reports is a polling company founded by Scott Rasmussen in 2003. Headquartered in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Rasmussen operates under the tagline, “If it’s in the News, it’s in our Polls.” In addition to polling, the site produces articles about the polls and current events. The company generates revenue from ad sales and subscription fees.

Methodology

            Rasmussen uses an automated polling methodology. Polls are mostly conducted by recorded questions fed to a calling program. According to Rasmussen, this is a positive because “every respondent hears exactly the same question, from the exact same voice, asked with the exact same inflection every single time.” While automated calls are more cost-effective for a self-funded website, critics would say that people are more likely to hang up on an automated call. This could result in a lower-than-average response rate that reduces the accuracy of the sample’s representation.

Bias

            With no outside sponsors, Rasmussen Reports appear to have no major influencers that would want to sway the polls a certain way. Although their methodology is not inherently biased, headlines on the site suggest reasons to question their impartiality.

 Here are some sample headlines from the home page on October 25, 2016:

·      Voters say Clinton has more to hide than Trump

·      Most fear voter fraud, say candidates shouldn’t accept early results

·      Should taxpayers help cushion spike in Obamacare rates?

·      Voters doubt more than ever that Obamacare will reduce health care costs

·      Most still say Clinton should have been indicted

·      Voters say a candidate’s policies more important than character

Fivethirtyeight polling expert Nate Silver says that historically, the polls “badly missed the margin in many states, and also exhibited a considerable bias toward Republican candidates.”

Rasmussen missed the final election margins by 5.8 points, worse than most pollsters, and 13 polls missed it by 10 or more. This included a poll of the 2010 Senate race in Hawaii where Rasmussen missed the final margin by 40 points. This, according to Silver, is the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database. FiveThirtyEight gives Rasmussen a C+ grade with the largest bias toward Republicans in their top 11 poll providers.

            Rasmussen’s methodology, history and reputation inspire some skepticism in their polls.  

by Cal Mincer