Rasmussen screwed up the swing states again in 2012
RealClearPolitics.com
A week before the election I wrote a post questioning whether Rasmussen was the most inaccurate swing state pollster in the nation, based on its consistently bad predictions in the 2008 presidential election.
If you’ll recall, Rasmussen’s 2008 predictions in 11 battleground were heavily skewed toward McCain, with the average “skew” at 4.08%, compared to the actual results. Rasmussen also called four states wrong, and five of its predictions were outside the margin of error, which left Rasmussen with a reliability rate of 55 percent.
Believe it or not, Rasmussen’s performance was WORSE in the 2012 election. Their polls were skewed toward Romney by an average of 4.28 percent. Rasmussen called 5 of 11 states wrong, and they blew the margin of error in 6 of 11 states, for a reliability rate of 45 percent.
Here are those numbers below. Highlighted in blue are the links to the Real Clear Politics results for the state in question. I’ve highlighted in red the states in which Rasmussen wrongly predicted the outcome. In the state where Rasmussen blew the margin of error, the skew is highlighted in green.
Colorado: Obama +4.7; Rasmussen, Romney +3 (skewed Romney by 7.7%)
Florida: Obama +.9; Rasmussen, Romney +2 (skewed Romney by 2.1%)
Iowa: Obama, +5.6; Rasmussen, Romney +1 (skewed Romney by 6.6%)
Michigan: Obama +9.5; Rasmussen, Obama +5 (skewed Romney by 4.5%)
Nevada: Obama +6.6; Rasmussen, Obama +2 (skewed Romney by 4.6%)
New Hampshire: Obama +5.8; Rasmussen, Obama +2 (skewed Romney by 3.8%)
North Carolina: Romney +2.2; Rasmussen, Romney + 6 (skewed Romney by 3.8%)
Ohio: Obama, +1.9; Rasmussen, tie (skewed Romney by 2.1%)
Pennsylvania: Obama +5.2; Rasmussen, Obama +5 (skewed Romney by .2%)
Virginia: Obama +3; Rasmussen, Romney +2 (skewed Romney by 5%)
Wisconsin: Obama +6.7; Rasmussen, tie (skewed Romney by 6.7%)
If you look at the RCP polling numbers in “tossup” Senate races, you’ll also note a consistent Rasmussen “skew” for the GOP candidates.
What conclusions can we draws from this?
- First, you’re nuts if you believe a Rasmussen state poll in a presidential “battleground” state. Fox News apparently came to this conclusion after the 2008 election (they dropped Rasmussen for 2012).
- Second, when you read a Rasmussen poll for one of the above, you’re best off if you deduct a “house edge” from the Republican candidate. That varies widely, but based on the above, you’d be fairly safe if you knocked off 2 points, maybe more, from whatever it said the Republican was polling. The only state they didn’t skew by that much in the 2012 contest was Pennsylvania, which Rasmussen more or less nailed.
- Third, Rasmussen needs to adjust its model of who’s going to vote, at least for presidential races. What they’ve got now appears useful only for fooling Republicans into believing they’re doing better than they actually are. And as we have seen, that doesn’t help the GOP at all.
November 25, 2012 - 12:49 PM
The question I ask is why? If even right leaning Fox won’t use you, who would?
I do not understand throwing away the reputation you depend on to try and skew a race that will tell on you in the end. It literally makes no sense. It is right wing delusion writ large.
This is what is funny about the conservative attack on Nate Silver. His name, fame, and money weren’t made by patting liberals on the back and making them feel better. He got where he is by being accurate.
I too wondered about the validity of Rasmussen’s poll, even more so after Scott Rasmussen appeared on the 700 Club. Karl Rove promoted “momentum” in the 2000 elections, with all the money spent from outside interests in this election, it’s conceivable the right leaning polls helped promote Romney’s so called “momentum”. Gallup stopped polling after Sandy, and Rasmussen suddenly was within their margin of error. Very strange.
RCP generally includes Rasmussen in its aggregate, and this post makes me feel even more that the supposed “tie” the race went into after the first debate was nonsense jinned up to keep campaign money flowing.
The right was up in arms about Silver being a shill because he disagreed with their bubble-born desires. Well, it seems Silver is again the most accurate predictor and those who predicted mainly Republican wins… not so much.
Silver is the most accurate. Time and again. Rasmussen the most right leaning and inaccurate.
Kristin, you’re right that the RCP average was to a lesser extent skewed, partly because Rasmussen is the most prolific pollster out there. But there were other pollsters whose numbers were generally favorable to Obama, and who pretty much nailed the election (ABC/WashPost and Pew) whose numbers reflected similar shifts.
Almost all the money that was contributed came in, and was committed, before the first debate. There was no conspiracy among the media to keep dollars flowing — most of them were going to flow anyway.
VVarlock, welcome back!
Re: Dan Casey @ 10:00 am
FWIIW, I am neither expressing a personal opinion here nor do I have an opinion about Rasmussen intentionally ginning up the numbers to keep campaign money flowing,Vs. him being ginned up (Brit’s usage) or him having deluded himself, Vs. purely seriously flawed methodology.
That said, however, Kristen’s “…to keep campaign money flowing” could still be valid, notwithstanding the fact that money was committed before the first debate — IMHO.
Throughout this campaign and other earlier campaigns we have seen money that was committed be withheld following a campaign-killer-event. We have seen money shifted / contracts canceled / offices closed / campaign workers moved following a campaign-killer-event (or in the case of the Electoral College predictions, moved to a different State once a State was written off as being winnable).
Assuming arguendo that the GOP and the various super-PACs and dark-money (not under the direct control of Romney) had become aware/strongly suspected [counterfactual subjunctive mood, here] that the Electoral College results would be what they turned out to be, would not money in-hand have been redirected to Congressional campaigns to try to mitigate the impact of the foreseen lose? Had the Electoral College results been foreseen by the shakers and movers would not even “committed” money dried up? IMHO, shakers and movers don’t knowingly pour good money after bad. They don’t knowingly pour money down a rat-hole w/o expectation of a return to themselves. IMHO, had they known that the Electoral College was unwinnable, that would have stopped spending on it on that campaign, one way or another.
I was certainly hit up for money straight through to the end of the election. I realize I don’t represent major funding, but there are a lot of people like me out there who might make a choice on whether or not to give based on the polling data.
Certainly states portrayed as “battlegrounds” don’t represent much of an actual battle when they all fall to the same candidate, save NC.
I lurk.
Last week of classes, getting ready for finals, lots of family last week, pretty busy around here. Mainly artificial, no one except me is going to care that I got a 3.4 instead of a 2.8. Once you aren’t in the top 2-5% employers don’t really care, but I put the pressure on to do better than that.
Dave Hicks –
You assume that they realize money can not actually buy elections. We have been told by both parties that money makes the difference…
Perhaps they really believed dumping enough $$ into the rat hole would fill it.
We also shouldn’t forget the fiasco called Gallup polling. They were wrong, and never adjusted their model to include a higher percentage of Latino voters. They stuck to their old white men model, even underestimating the Democratic voter numbers. They should write a mea culpa to all those [not me] who kept citing their polling numbers as if they had come down from the “Mount”.
Re: VVArlock @ 11:40 am
VVArlock,
Primarily, I was hypothesizing that Rasmussen might have believed that dumping enough $$ into the rat hole would fill it and that that Rasmussen might not have believed that the true shakers and movers would knowingly pour good money after bad — hence a motive for Rasmussen to have ginned the data.
However, you could be right as to both sets of bad actors being of that persuasion.